Cheapest seatNo landing
18 min18-Minute Twin Glacier
- Eighteen minutes over two glaciers
- Franz Josef and Fox in one flight
- The shortest flight on offer
- Free cancellation
$232
Check availability→ 
Franz Josef helicopter tours
Seven flights leave the village pad, from eighteen minutes over two glaciers to a full day walking on the ice. Since the terminal face pulled back, a helicopter is the only way to stand on Franz Josef Glacier. Real prices, real durations, and which one is worth the money.
From, per person
7 flights compared$232
Eighteen minutes over Franz Josef and Fox
Average rating
Across all 7 flights4.8 ★
Across 1,705 verified reviews
Time in the air
Snow landing on most18–50 min
Plus heli-hikes of a half or full day
Free cancellation 24 h
Reserve now, pay later
Mobile voucher
Snow landing on most flights
Instant confirmation
Small groups
Every flight from the village
Every Franz Josef helicopter flight
Everything that flies out of Franz Josef, in one place: seven options between $232 and $911, all with the same aircraft type and the same weather rules. The short flights differ mainly in how much of the Southern Alps you cross before the skids touch snow. The heli-hikes are a different thing entirely — you get off the machine and walk into the ice.
Our top pickMost booked
25 min25-Minute Alpine Landing
★ 4.8 · 693 reviews
- Ice pinnacles and crevasses from above
- Alpine landing in the Southern Alps
- The cheapest flight that lands
- Free cancellation
$232
Check availability→ 
Franz Josef + Tasman
30 min30-Minute Franz Josef & Tasman
★ 4.8 · 84 reviews
- Franz Josef and Tasman in one flight
- Thirty minutes in the air
- Glacier landing included
- Free cancellation
$235
Check availability→ 
Two glaciersSnow landing
35 min35-Minute Two Glaciers
★ 4.9 · 527 reviews
- Franz Josef plus Fox or Tasman
- Flies past Aoraki / Mount Cook
- Ten-minute snow landing
- Free cancellation
$291
Check availability→ 
Longest flight
50 minShackleton 50-Minute Endurance
★ 5.0 · 2 reviews
- Franz Josef, Tasman and Shackleton
- The Shackleton expedition story
- A taste of his whisky on the ice
- Fifty minutes, the longest flight
$468
Check availability→ 
Walk on the iceBooks out first
4–8 hHeli-Hike, 2.5 Hours on Ice
★ 4.8 · 398 reviews
- Two and a half hours on the ice
- Helicopter transfer both ways
- Guided, with boots and crampons
- The only way onto this glacier
$529
Check availability→ 
Full dayLunch
8 hExtended Heli-Hike with Lunch
★ 5.0 · 1 reviews
- Up to 5.5 hours on the ice
- Small group guiding
- Glacier picnic lunch
- The longest day on the glacier
$911
Check availability→ Two questions
Which flight is yours?
Seen the seven above and still torn? They are not versions of each other. Eighteen minutes shows you the ice; twenty-five puts you on it; a heli-hike gives you the day. Pick what matters most and we will point at one.
See it before you pay for it
What you actually see up there
The pad is in the village, so the rainforest is under you within seconds. Then the valley narrows, the grey of the moraine gives way to blue, and Franz Josef Glacier appears as a broken staircase of ice falling out of the mountains. The pilot climbs along it. Higher up, the crevasse field flattens into the névé — a white bowl that feeds the whole glacier — and that is where you land. On the longer flights you cross the divide to Fox or Tasman and come back past Aoraki / Mount Cook.
Side by side
Eighteen, twenty-five or thirty-five minutes
The three short flights cost within sixty dollars of each other, and the difference is not really the duration — it is whether you land, and how much of the Alps you see before you do.
Swipe the table sideways →
| 18-Minute Twin Glacier | TOP PICK25-Minute Alpine Landing | 35-Minute Two Glaciers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per person | $232 | $232 | $291 |
| Time in the air | 18 min | 25 min | 35 min |
| Cost per minute | $12.89 | $9.28 | $8.31 |
| Lands on the glacier | No | Yes, alpine landing | Yes, ten minutes |
| Franz Josef | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fox or Tasman | Fox | No | Fox or Tasman |
| Aoraki / Mount Cook | No | Part of the range | Yes |
| Rating | New | 4.8 · 693 | 4.9 · 527 |
| Best for | The tightest budget | Most visitors | Two glaciers in one flight |
| Check dates | Book this one→ | Check dates |
TOP PICK
25-Minute Alpine Landing
$232- Time in the air
- 25 min
- Cost per minute
- $9.28
- Lands on the glacier
- Yes
- Franz Josef
- Yes
- Fox or Tasman
- No
- Rating
- 4.8 · 693
- Best for
- Most visitors
Free cancellation up to 24 h · No booking fee
18-Minute Twin Glacier
$232- Time in the air
- 18 min
- Cost per minute
- $12.89
- Lands on the glacier
- No
- Franz Josef
- Yes
- Fox or Tasman
- Fox
- Rating
- New
- Best for
- The tightest budget
35-Minute Two Glaciers
$291- Time in the air
- 35 min
- Cost per minute
- $8.31
- Lands on the glacier
- Yes
- Franz Josef
- Yes
- Fox or Tasman
- Fox or Tasman
- Rating
- 4.9 · 527
- Best for
- Two glaciers in one flight
Verdict
Book the 25-minute flight
The twenty-five-minute flight is the shortest one that still lands on the snow, and that is the whole decision. The eighteen-minute flight costs the same and stays in the air, so you fly all the way to the West Coast and look at the glacier through a window. The extra $59 for thirty-five minutes buys a second glacier and a pass by Aoraki / Mount Cook.
Check dates and availability→Before you book
Where the helicopter actually lands
Nobody sets down on the icefall itself. Flights climb alongside it and land higher up on the névé, the snowfield that feeds the glacier, where the surface is stable enough to take the skids. That is why the landing photographs show smooth snow rather than the broken ice you flew over a minute earlier.
Two-minute check
Which flight fits your day?
Three things decide it here: how much of the day you have, whether you want to stand on the ice, and what the budget stretches to. Answer three questions and find out before you pay.
How long do you have?Time is the real constraint here
Do you want to stand on the ice?Not every flight lands
How far does the budget stretch?Per person, one seat
Answer the three questions above
You'll get a straight yes or no, the flight that fits your day, and the specific thing that would trip you up at check-in.
Six ways to see it
1705 reviews across seven flights
These are the operators' own numbers on GetYourGuide, not ours — we do not collect reviews and we do not rewrite anyone else's. Two flights carry almost all of them, which tells you what people actually book.
4.8
★★★★★
Based on 1,705
verified reviews
5 ★88%
4 ★9%
3 ★2%
2 ★1%
1 ★0%
All seven Franz Josef flights and heli-hikes, rated on GetYourGuide.
Read all 1,705→🚁
25-Minute Alpine Landing
From $232 · lands on the snow
★★★★★
The benchmark everything else is measured against
Twenty-five minutes over the icefall and ten on the névé. The cheapest flight that lands, the one most people here book, and the one reviewers almost never regret.
🧭
Heli-hike, 2.5 hours on the ice
From $529 · guided, with crampons
★★★★★
The only way to walk on this glacier
Flown in, fitted with boots and crampons, and walked through the crevasse field for two and a half hours. Since the valley track was cut back there is no alternative to it.
🚶
The valley walk
Free · about 90 minutes return
★★★★★
The thing you should not skip, and it costs nothing
A flat marked track up the riverbed to a viewpoint, past markers showing where the ice stood decade by decade. It shows you the scale of the retreat in a way no flight does. It also stops several hundred metres short of the ice.
👁
Franz Josef: Franz Josef Glacier Lookout Guided Walk
From $65 · guided
★★★★☆
The valley walk with someone who knows what you are looking at
The same track with a guide reading the terminal moraine, the markers and the rock for you. Rated 4.8 across 169 reviews. It is the best value on this page and it still does not reach the ice.
Small group · guided
✈
18-Minute Twin Glacier
From $232 · no landing
★★★☆☆
The cheapest ticket, and the one we would skip
Eighteen minutes over Franz Josef and Fox, which is genuinely good, and then back to the village. It costs the same as the flight that lands on the snow, which is why it loses stars here rather than for anything it does wrong.
♨
Franz Josef: Waiho Hot Tubs 1 Hour Private Experience
From $79 · 1 hour
★★★★☆
What to do with the afternoon the weather takes
Private hot tubs in the rainforest at the edge of the village. It has nothing to do with the glacier and it is the thing people book when the cloud comes down and the flight is called off.
Booked alongside the flight
What it really costs
Nobody at Franz Josef is cheaper
Four operators fly from Franz Josef and each publishes one seat price, charged the same everywhere — their own desk, the booking platforms, the hotel in the village. What changes is whether there is a seat left on a day the weather is good, and in this valley that is the whole game.
Swipe sideways →
| Where you book | Price | Risk | Cancellation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online in advance | $232–$911 | None — your seat is held | Free up to 24 hours |
| At the desk in the village | Same price, no discount | Only what is unsold that day | Desk policy, usually stricter |
| Waiting for better weather | Same price | High — everyone rebooks onto the first clear day | None once boarded |
What the listing doesn’t show you
- Getting to the pad. Every operator flies from the village itself, so there is no airport transfer — and no hotel pickup either. Everything is walking distance.
- The landing is not guaranteed. If the snow is unsafe the pilot flies the route and keeps the skids up. That is not a refundable change.
- Shared flights. Unless the listing says private, you are flying with strangers and your seat is assigned by weight.
- Tipping. Not expected in New Zealand, for pilots or ground crew.
What is genuinely included
- The flight itself, and the landing where the listing says there is one
- Safety briefing and weigh-in before boarding
- Headsets and live pilot commentary throughout
- Boots, crampons and a waterproof jacket on every guided heli-hike
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure
The honest answer
Is a Franz Josef helicopter tour worth it?
Two hundred and thirty dollars for twenty-five minutes is a lot of money, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What you are buying is access: the walking track was closed to the ice years ago, and the glacier you came to see starts where the track stops.
What makes it worth it
- The ice starts above the closed section of the valley track
- A ten-minute landing on the névé, which no walk reaches
- Franz Josef and Fox in one flight — two glaciers, twenty minutes apart
- Rainforest and permanent ice inside the same window
- Aoraki / Mount Cook from the western side on the longer flights
Keep in mind
- $232 is the cheapest seat here, for eighteen minutes
- The West Coast cancels flights often — build in a spare morning
- The eighteen-minute flight does not land
- Seats are assigned by weight, so you cannot pick a side
- Cloud below the tops grounds everything, even in fine weather elsewhere
The flight, minute by minute
Village to névé and back
Weigh-in at the village
Everyone is weighed. Seats are assigned by balance, not by who booked first.
Briefing and headsets
Two minutes on the door handles, the seatbelt and the rule about never walking uphill of the machine.
Lift off over the rainforest
The pad sits in the village. Podocarp forest is under the skids within seconds, and the Waiho riverbed opens ahead.
Up the valley to the terminal face
The grey moraine gives out and the ice begins — the part visitors used to walk to, seen from directly above.
The icefall
The glacier breaks into seracs and crevasses as it falls out of the mountains. This is the section no walk can reach.
Snow landing on the névé
The skids settle on the snowfield that feeds the whole glacier. Ten minutes outside, silence, and the Alps in every direction.
Down the far side
On the longer flights the pilot crosses to Fox or Tasman and returns past Aoraki / Mount Cook.
Best time of day
The first slot of the morning
Cloud on the West Coast builds as the valley warms, and by early afternoon the tops are often in it. The first flights of the day are cancelled least often and fly in the smoothest air. If the morning goes bad you still have the rest of the day to be rebooked into — book the other way round and you have nothing.
On the route
What you actually see
The icefall
Seracs and crevasses where the glacier falls out of the mountains. No walking track reaches this.
Blue ice
Compressed ice reads blue from the air, in bands you cannot see from the valley floor.
Rainforest to ice
One of the few places on earth where a glacier ends this close to temperate rainforest.
Ten minutes on the snow
The landing is short. It is also the part everybody talks about afterwards.
What it's like
Twenty-five minutes over Franz Josef
The part nobody warns you about is how quickly it stops being a village. The pad is a strip of gravel behind the main street, and thirty seconds after the skids leave it the shops are gone and you are over podocarp forest so dense it reads as a single green surface.
The Waiho riverbed opens first — a wide grey braid of meltwater and shingle that looks far too big for the stream running down the middle of it. That is the first honest piece of information the flight gives you: the glacier used to end down there.
Then the valley narrows and tilts up, and the ice appears. Not the postcard view from the car park a kilometre back, but the terminal face from directly overhead, grey with rock flour and split across the front. It is the part visitors used to walk to. The track to it has been closed for years, and from up here you can see exactly why: the face is collapsing into its own valley.
Above it the glacier becomes something else entirely. The icefall is where Franz Josef drops out of the Southern Alps in a staircase of seracs the size of houses, blue where the ice is old and compressed, white where it has broken recently. There is no route through it on foot. This is the section the helicopter exists to show you, and it lasts about ninety seconds.
Then the ground flattens. The crevasse field opens out into the névé, a white bowl of snow that feeds everything below it, and the pilot picks a spot and sets down. The engine winds back, the doors open, and the noise stops in a way that is genuinely startling. Ten minutes, boots in packed snow, the Alps standing all the way round the horizon and the Tasman Sea a grey line to the west.
On the longer flights the return is the second half of the show. The machine crosses the divide to Fox, twenty-five kilometres south and a longer, straighter river of ice, or swings inland over Tasman with Aoraki / Mount Cook off the right-hand side. Then the nose drops, the snow gives way to rock and the rock to forest, and you are back over the riverbed with the village ahead.
It costs more than most things you will do in New Zealand. What you are actually buying is the twenty minutes between the terminal face and the névé, and there is no other way to buy them.
While you're in the village
The other three things people book here
The flight takes about an hour. Franz Josef is a long way from anywhere, so most people are here for two nights and need something for the afternoon the weather takes.
On foot
Franz Josef: Franz Josef Glacier Lookout Guided Walk
3 hours · ★ 4.8 (169)
$65See dates Wet afternoon
Franz Josef: Waiho Hot Tubs 1 Hour Private Experience
1 hour · ★ 5 (1)
$79See dates From Queenstown
Queenstown: Franz Josef Glacier Heli Hike & Scenic Flight
6.5 hours · ★ 4.8 (28)
$1058See datesBefore you book
Plan your flight
Franz Josef gets about five metres of rain a year. Flights cancel often, and the people who fly are the ones who left themselves a second morning.
Five metres of rain a year
Franz Josef village sits where wet westerlies meet the Alps. Rain is the normal state, not the exception.
Cloud base, not rain
Flights go in light rain and stop when the cloud sits below the tops. A grey morning is not automatically a cancelled one.
Morning is the best bet
Air is calmest before the valley heats up. The first slot of the day is cancelled least often.
You are refunded, not rebooked
If the operator cancels you get the money back. Getting another seat that week is your problem.
Leave a spare morning
Book the first morning of two nights, not the only morning of one.
Check the day before
Operators call or message the evening before with a realistic read on the morning.
It is winter up there
The landing site is near two thousand metres. It can be twenty degrees colder than the village.
Closed shoes
You step onto packed snow. Sandals and thin trainers make the ten minutes miserable.
A layer you can take off
The cabin is warm in sun and the outside is not. One jacket solves it.
Sunglasses
Snow glare at altitude is severe, and there is no shade on the névé.
Heli-hikes provide the gear
Boots, crampons, jacket and overtrousers come with the guided walks.
Leave the bag behind
Cabins are small and weight matters. A camera and a jacket is the sensible load.
Weight decides your seat
Everyone is weighed at check-in and the pilot balances the machine. Nobody chooses a window.
The price is the price
Operators publish one seat fare and hold it everywhere. There is no cheaper channel.
Free cancellation to 24 hours
Every flight on this page can be cancelled the day before at no cost.
Book ahead in December and January
Peak season fills the first morning slots weeks out.
Heli-hikes need a fitness level
You are walking on ice for two hours or more. The operators are explicit about this.
Children and minimum ages
Age limits differ by operator and by flight; the listing states each one.
Five and a half hours from Christchurch
Over Arthur’s Pass and down the coast. Not a day trip.
Four hours from Queenstown
Via Haast Pass, one of the finest drives in the country.
Two and a half hours from Greymouth
The straightforward run down State Highway 6.
The pads are in the village
All operators fly from the edge of the township. No airport transfer.
Fox Glacier is 25 minutes south
Some flights leave from there instead; check which village your booking names.
Fuel and food are limited
Fill up in Hokitika or Haast. The village has a few places and they close early.
Best time
When to fly
The glacier flies all year. What changes is how many days in a row are flyable, and how far ahead the good slots are gone.
Feb – Apr
The settled window
The most stable air of the year. Long enough days for an afternoon slot and the smallest chance of losing your only morning to cloud.
Dec – Jan
Busy and bright
Peak season on the West Coast. Good flying, but the first slots go weeks ahead and the village is full.
May – Aug
Cold, clear, quiet
Winter brings the sharpest air and the emptiest pad, along with short days and long spells of rain between them.
Sep – Nov
Unsettled spring
Fresh snow high up and a green valley below, but the weather changes hour to hour. Leave two mornings free.
Worth knowing
Six things that aren't in the listing
01
Book the first slot of the morning. Air is smoothest before the valley warms up, and if the morning goes bad you still have the afternoon to rebook.
02
Two nights, not one. Half the people who miss out had a single morning here. The weather does not care about your itinerary.
03
The eighteen-minute flight does not land. It costs the same as the twenty-five-minute flight that does.
04
Wear closed shoes. You will be standing on packed snow at altitude. This catches people out more than the cold does.
05
Do not walk uphill of the helicopter. The rotor disc drops on sloping ground. The briefing covers it; people forget it anyway.
06
Ask which glaciers your flight crosses. “Two glaciers” can mean Franz Josef and Fox, or Franz Josef and Tasman.
Round out the trip
Booked alongside
Go deeper
More on flying at Franz Josef
Common questions
Franz Josef helicopter tours, answered
How much is a Franz Josef helicopter tour?
Seats run from $232 for the eighteen-minute flight and the twenty-five-minute alpine landing, through $235 and $291 for the thirty and thirty-five minute flights, to $529 for a guided heli-hike and $911 for the full-day version with lunch. Those are per person and they are the same at every desk in the village.
Can you still walk onto Franz Josef Glacier?
Not onto the ice. The valley track was cut back after the terminal face retreated and became unstable, and it now ends at a viewpoint well short of the glacier. Guided access to the ice itself is by helicopter only, which is why the heli-hike exists as a product at all.
What is a heli-hike, and how is it different from a scenic flight?
A scenic flight puts you over the glacier and, on most options, down on the snowfield above it for ten minutes. A heli-hike flies you onto the ice, hands you boots and crampons, and a guide walks you through the crevasse field for two and a half hours or more before flying you out.
Do all the flights land?
No. The eighteen-minute flight stays in the air. The twenty-five, thirty and thirty-five minute flights all include a landing on the snow, usually ten minutes. If the landing is the reason you are booking, read the duration line before you pay.
How often are flights cancelled?
Often enough that it should change how you plan. This is one of the wettest inhabited places in New Zealand. Operators fly when the cloud base is above the tops, refund you when it is not, and cannot promise you a seat the next day. Book the first morning of a two-night stay.
Franz Josef or Fox Glacier — which flight is better?
They are twenty-five kilometres apart and most flights from Franz Josef cross both. Franz Josef has the steeper icefall and the bigger operation; Fox is quieter and the valley is longer. For a base, Franz Josef has more beds and more aircraft, which matters when the weather compresses everyone into one clear morning.
Is it worth it if I have already seen the glacier from the road?
The road viewpoint shows you the valley and the end of the ice from about a kilometre away. The flight shows you the icefall, the crevasse field and the névé, and puts you on top of them. They are not the same view of the same thing.
Free · no account needed
Franz Josef in two days — the plan we'd follow
One PDF with the schedule that works around the weather, the flying window and the drive either side. Built from the same sources as this page.
- Which morning to hold for the flight, and why
- The drive in from Queenstown or Christchurch, hour by hour
- What is left to do in the village when the weather closes in
- Fox Glacier in the same two days, or not
Check your inbox
The plan is on its way. If it isn't there in a minute, look in Promotions.
Why trust this page
How we put this together
Checked, not guessed
Every price, duration and rating was read off the live listing, and is re-checked each quarter.
How we pick
We list every helicopter flight and heli-hike sold at Franz Josef, not a shortlist. Nobody pays to be featured.
Written for one decision
This page exists to answer one question: which flight to book. If a section did not help with that, we cut it.
Where facts come from
Glacier and access information comes from the Department of Conservation and the operators' own briefing material.
The answer
Twenty-five minutes, with a landing
The cheapest flight that puts you on the ice, and the one most people here book. The eighteen-minute option costs the same and never lands; the thirty-five-minute flight adds a second glacier and Aoraki / Mount Cook.
Check dates and availability→ Free cancellation up to 24 hours · Reserve now, pay later