Mount Cook Helicopter Tours

Every scenic flight at Aoraki/Mount Cook shows you the same mountain. At 3,724 metres it is New Zealand’s highest peak, and even the shortest flight climbs close enough to see its ice cliffs and the Tasman Glacier below. So the choice is about the details: 25 minutes or 55, a landing on a mountain ridge or on the glacier itself, a helicopter, a ski plane or both, and whether you want two hours on the ice with a guide.

For most first-time visitors we would book the Scenic Helicopter Flight with Alpine Landing from INFLITE Mt Cook Ski Planes & Helicopters. It is 25 minutes from Mount Cook Airport, up the Tasman Valley and over a glacier lake, with a landing in the mountains, from $217 per person. It is the most-reviewed flight on this site, with 517 reviews at 4.7. Our breakdown of that flight has the detail.

Which Mount Cook flight fits you

• If you want to be sure of standing on snow, book the Ski Plane and Helicopter Glacier Combo, from $314. You fly up in one aircraft, land on the upper Tasman Glacier for 10 to 15 minutes and fly back in the other. Glacier landings are INFLITE’s year-round snow option; its mountain-ridge landing sites can be short of snow from about December to March. More on our helicopter and ski plane combo page.
• If you want to walk on the glacier, book the Tasman Glacier Helicopter Ride and Hike with Mt Cook Glacier Guiding, from $569. It is three hours in total, with up to two hours on the ice in crampons, and the minimum age is nine. Our Tasman Glacier helicopter tours page compares it with The Helicopter Line’s version.
• If you want the longest flight, book The Helicopter Line’s Aoraki & The Glaciers 55-Minute Flight, from $500. It follows the Tasman Glacier, crosses the Main Divide to the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers and includes a snow landing. The same flight has 141 reviews on Viator, where it lists from $525.
• If you are coming from Lake Tekapo and would rather see everything from a plane window, book the 50-Minute Mount Cook and Beyond Scenic Flight with Air Safaris, from $300, rated 5.0 from 132 reviews. It is a fixed-wing flight, so expect views, not a landing.
• If you are travelling with young children, start with the 25-minute flights. Our family guide covers seats for infants, ages and clothing.

Still torn between the durations? Our 25 vs 40 vs 55 minute guide shows what each extra quarter-hour adds to the route, and our ranked list of the best Mount Cook helicopter flights picks one flight for each kind of traveller.

The main flights at a glance

Prices are per person in US dollars on GetYourGuide, and every GetYourGuide flight on this site can be cancelled free of charge up to 24 hours before. Our Mount Cook helicopter tour prices page lists every flight on one table, including the ones sold only on Viator.

What really separates them

Where you land

This is the difference most people miss when they book. An alpine landing puts the helicopter down on a mountain ridge or high snowfield, and on INFLITE’s shortest flight that site can have little or no snow in the heat of summer. A glacier landing puts you on the Tasman Glacier itself, where there is snow and ice all year. The Helicopter Line’s 40- and 55-minute flights advertise a snow landing; its 25- and 35-minute flights make an alpine landing with snow depending on the season. If standing in snow is the point, read our snow landing guide before you book.

Helicopter or ski plane

Mount Cook is one of the few places where you can land on a glacier in a fixed-wing plane. INFLITE’s Pilatus Porter and Cessna 185 ski planes take off from the airport runway on wheels and land on the upper Tasman Glacier on skis, a route the company has flown since Harry Wigley’s first landing on 22 September 1955. On the snow the ski plane’s engine is shut down, so the glacier is quiet. The helicopter flies lower and closer to the ridges. Our ski plane vs helicopter page sets them side by side. The pure ski-plane flights, the 45-minute Glacier Highlights and the longer Grand Circle, are sold on Viator and not on GetYourGuide.

Minutes in the air

The advertised time includes the landing. On a 25-minute flight you spend part of it on the ground, so the flying itself is short: up the Tasman Valley, a landing, and back. The 40-minute flights reach the Hochstetter Icefall on the face of Aoraki and the upper Tasman Glacier. The 55-minute flights cross the Main Divide to the West Coast glaciers and back, so you see both sides of the Southern Alps in one flight.

Walking on the ice

A scenic flight gives you 10 to 15 minutes on the snow at most. A heli-hike gives you up to two hours on the Tasman Glacier with a guide, boots and crampons supplied, at low to moderate fitness. There are two versions, from Mt Cook Glacier Guiding and The Helicopter Line, both from $569 on GetYourGuide.

Weather decides the day

Mount Cook weather changes fast. Operators make the final call on the morning of the flight, sometimes up to a few minutes before departure, and if they cancel you can rebook or take a full refund. Both INFLITE and The Helicopter Line suggest booking early in your stay so there is room to move the flight. Book your first morning in the area, keep the next day free, and check the forecast the evening before.

Two more things catch people out. Seats are allocated on the day by weight, so a front seat cannot be booked in advance. And INFLITE sets a general limit of 116 kg per passenger, with weights checked at check-in.

Where the flights leave from

Two airfields serve almost every flight here. Mount Cook Airport sits at the end of State Highway 80, a few minutes’ drive from Aoraki/Mount Cook Village, and is home to INFLITE, Southern Lakes Helicopters and both heli-hikes. The Helicopter Line flies its scenic flights from Glentanner Park, about 20 km south of the village on the shore of Lake Pukaki. The village is about 3.5 hours’ drive from Queenstown and 4.5 hours from Christchurch, so most visitors fly on a day they are already staying nearby.

If you are weighing the cost against a free day on the Hooker Valley Track, our is it worth it page compares the two. When you have picked a flight, you can check availability for the featured flight above, or go to all Mount Cook flights.