What’s purported to be the world’s longest gondola is scheduled to open today, Saturday, June 7th in Turkey.
Leitner has built the 8.8km long gondola to link the city of Bursa to the ski slopes of Uludağ, for many years Turkey’s leading and longest established ski resort, but in recent years facing still competition from a new generation of modern Turkish ski areas which are both larger and have modern uplift.
The new lift three-stage lift will has 45 support towers and climbs 1,400 vertical metre from a start point of just 395 metres above sea level to nearly 1,800 metres up. It is reported to cover a distance of nearly nine kilometres which Leitner believes makes it the longest gondola ropeway in the world.
The Uludağ mountains are a popular destination area year round for the population of Bursa,. Turkey’s fourth largest city and only 140km from Istanbul. The new gondola with 174 eight-person cabins and a transport capacity of 1,500 people per hour replaces a 50 year old, 4,500 metre long ropeway.