Mount Cook Group

Mount Cook Group was a New Zealand tourism and transport operator founded on 2 April 1912 by Rodolph Lysaght Wigley. Originally a road transport business, the Mount Cook Tourist Company of New Zealand became a public company in 1928. By 1930 Wigley had built it into the largest tourist organisation in New Zealand, and it was renamed Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company, the name adopted in the mid 1930s. In 1976 it became The Mount Cook Group Ltd. The company was split in 1989 with various operations progressively sold off, with Air New Zealand retaining the airline businesses. The company remained (on paper) until 17 June 2013 when it was amalgamated into Air New Zealand Associated Companies Limited, a holding company for Air New Zealand's various businesses (and current "owner" of Mount Cook Airline).

Rodolph Wigley's Mt. Cook Motor Car Service provided the first car transportation from Fairlie to the Hermitage in February 1906. The company owned four Darracq 40 and 60 hp service cars and carried mail and passengers. The business collapsed in November 1907 but in 1912 Wigley restarted operations as the Mount Cook Motor Co. Ltd. By 1918, there was a weekly service car between Mt Cook and Queenstown over the Lindis Pass using Cadillacs. The company depot was in Fairlie. Rodolph Wigley's Mount Cook Motor Co, later called Mount Cook Landlines, provided inter-city and sightseeing coach services. Originally providing services to the Aoraki/Mt Cook region of the South Island, the company grew to take over many other New Zealand bus companies: H&H of Invercargill, Luxury Landlines and Hawkes Bay Motor Co of the North Island. In 1989 the Mount Cook Landline exchanged several routes with Newmans Coachlines, the two companies each specialised to the South Island and North Island respectively. When in 1989 Air New Zealand sold Mount Cook Group's non-airline assets to Tourism Holdings Limited, the latter scrapped the coach route services and the Mount Cook brand.

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