Shares of Vail Resorts have fallen in recent weeks as one of the most popular skiing locations in America has been rocked by a labor conflict.
Late last month, the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association, a union that represents patrollers at the eponymous Utah mountain, went on strike. Customers on pricey ski vacations have taken to social media to complain about lengthy lineups, closures, and delays as a result of the labor stoppage.
The consolidation of America’s ski resorts under Vail and a few other firms has come to light as a result of this circumstance. During the collapse at Park City, which is regarded as the largest U.S. mountain by lift access and has a rich history that includes hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics, Vail’s association with a prominent private equity group has further fueled the ire.
The Park City Patrol’s primary demands include raising base pay from $21 per hour, where the union claims it has been since 2022, to $23 per hour. On December 27, the first day of the strike, the patrol said that Vail had failed to provide a counterproposal to its demands about pay and benefits.
The patrol posted a statement on its Facebook page urging readers not to purchase lift tickets or spend money at resorts during the strike, saying, “We did everything in our power to avoid this work stoppage.” Securing a fair contract has been and remains our goal.
In a statement released over the weekend, Vail, the company that owns Breckenridge and numerous other resorts, claimed to have raised Park City patrol salaries by more than 50% during the previous four seasons. When skill-based pay incentives are taken into account, the average hourly patrol rate for entry-level employees is currently $22.40, according to the business. Patrol officers often make $25 per hour.
According to a statement from Bill Rock, president of Vail Resorts Mountain Division, “the high return rate among patrol teams across our company and the number of applicants we get for any patrol opening demonstrate our strong wages and benefits.” However, we are still dedicated to coming to a consensus that shows how much we value our patrollers.
A Park City representative said Vail resumed mediation with the union on Monday. However, as news of the resort’s conditions during the strike spread online, the stock has already suffered, falling more than 5% from a week ago.
“MTN is now at odds with frustrated customers who traveled to Park City over the past two weeks because it allowed a labor dispute with its ski patrolmen to fester,” Don Bilson, head of event-driven research at Gordon Haskett, wrote in a Monday letter to clients. The mountain is hardly open due to a strike, and naturally, patrons are taking to social media to moan. Investors are, too.
Bilson went on to say that Kirsten Lynch, the CEO, might experience a crisis in her career.
On social media, irate customers posted videos of lineups and complained about how expensive their ski vacations were. As of Monday morning, Park City Mountain slive tracker reported that just 25 of 41 lifts and 103 of 350 trails were in operation.
The longest lines ever. One person posted on X, “No excuse.”
Some of the online hate has focused on the participation of private equity, which has grown to be a subject of contention among American consumers. Those who are curious about why ski resorts have grown so costly have referred out the firm’s role in the history of the resort operator, even though Apollo terminated its Vail ownership in 2004.
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