Postwar History
Flying resumed in 1952 using an Auster J1-A Autocrat, registration ZK-BDX (now preserved inside the terminal of Queenstown Airport).
In 1954, NZ Aero Transport Company was reformed as Mount Cook Air Services Ltd, specialising in scenic flights, agricultural work and rescue missions.
Sir Henry solved the problem of landing in Tasman, Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers by attaching retractable skis (designed and made in the company's vehicle workshop) to the Auster, and landed on the snow of Tasman Glacier. This is how the Ski Plane operation started, aimed at taking tourists to skifields and glaciers in ski-equipped light aircraft.
Mount Cook Ski Planes now operates a fleet of Cessna 185s and Pilatus Porters, and is the only company to land scenic flights on the Tasman Glacier to this day.
The Mount Cook Group operated bus services, trucking, skifields and built an airfield at Mount Cook to bring in the growing number of visitors to the Southern Alps. Scheduled services for Mount Cook Airline began on 6 November 1961 between Christchurch, Mount Cook, Queenstown and Te Anau with a 26-seater Douglas DC-3.
Mount Cook Airline was one of New Zealand's tourism pioneers opening up the 'tourist trail' of Rotorua through to Christchurch, Mount Cook and Queenstown. For almost 30 years, it operated a fleet of Hawker Siddeley HS 748s across regional tourist routes in New Zealand. After a long evaluation study, the first of the new ATR 72-200s arrived in October 1995 as the chosen replacement of the HS 748s.
In June 2001, Air New Zealand Group added extra capacity on domestic routes by introducing 4 BAe 146s to supplement the ATRs. These aircraft were taken from the failed Qantas New Zealand franchise. A temporary measure, they retired the following year after 6 extra Boeing 737-300s were added to the mainline fleet.
The airline's symbol is the Mount Cook Lily, which prior to the integration with the Air New Zealand link brand was displayed on the tails of its aeroplanes.
Air New Zealand purchased part of the Mount Cook Group in the 1980s after Sir Henry's death, increased to 30% on 5 December 1983, then another 47% (increased to 77%) in October 1985 after gaining approval on 18 July that year; and the remainder on 18 April 1991.
Mount Cook Airline has 378 employees (as at March 2007).
Read more about this topic: Mount Cook Airline
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