Sign in

Private company

Glenorchy Air

Logo: glenorchyair.co.nz3

Airline of New Zealand

Glenorchy Air is a scenic flight and air charter company based at Queenstown Airport, New Zealand. The company was founded by Janet and Robert Rutherford in 1992, with just one aeroplane, a Cessna 185. With the expansion of the business, a second aircraft, a Piper PA-32-300 Cherokee Six, was purchased in 1996.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1992Founded1

See how the biggest companies compare on our leaderboards

Glenorchy Air is a scenic flight and air charter company based at Queenstown Airport, New Zealand. The company was founded by Janet and Robert Rutherford in 1992, with just one aeroplane, a Cessna 185. With the expansion of the business, a second aircraft, a Piper PA-32-300 Cherokee Six, was purchased in 1996. The Cessna 185 was sold in 2003 when it was replaced by a new Gippsland GA8 Airvan. The company took delivery of a second Airvan in 2013 and added two more before the business was sold in 2019.2

Products and brands

Services

Glenorchy Air operates scenic flights between Queenstown and Milford Sound as well as several activity options at Mount Cook Village, and glacier flights. Flights operate from Queenstown or from Glenorchy on demand. Charter flights are also available to anywhere in New Zealand. Day trips from Queenstown to Stewart Island started in November 2020.

Fuel efficiency research

In 2010 Glenorchy Air was one of eight companies that took part in research to determine optimum fuel efficiency. The research was of the New Zealand Tourism Energy Efficiency Programme, which was a partnership between the Tourism Industry Association and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority.

Glenorchy Air installed technology which showed how much fuel its aircraft were burning on a litres-per-hour basis. It also installed GPS technology to inform pilots of their ground speed. This enabled them to determine the optimum altitude for fuel savings.

Fleet

The Glenorchy Air fleet currently consists of the following aircraft:

Read the full text

Glenorchy Air has operated many types of aircraft in the past including Cessna 172, Cessna 177, Piper PA-32-300 and Cessna 185.

From Wikipedia’s article on Glenorchy Air, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1992Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
    Company websiteGlenorchy Air logo
  4. 4