As a business, we recognize how incredibly lucky we are to call this beautiful place home. Fiordland National Park, Milford Sound and Stewart Island are close to our hearts and we feel an intrinsic connection to these wild places. We are fortunate to be able to operate here and enable our guests to experience these locations for themselves.
Because of this connection, we understand the huge importance of contributing to the sustainability of our surroundings, both for us and for future generations. At Milford Helicopters, sustainability isn’t just a goal – it’s a way of life, and because of this, the Tiaki Promise, sustainability and guardianship are at the forefront of everything we do. It’s always thinking about the steps we can take to help our community, preserve the environment and continue to improve our knowledge.
Nau mai, haere mai ki Aotearoa. Welcome to New Zealand.
Community Support
Milford Helicopter is proud to support several charitable organisations and agencies, with a particular focus on children’s causes. We support the local Southern Stars Race Day Ramble, Heart Kids, Southland Regional Autism, Going Bananas, and the 900 Degrees Child Safety Handbook.
In the same thread, we love to support local sports clubs like the Fiordland Squash club and the Fiordland Hockey Tournament. We are also the title sponsor of the Fiordland Big 3 hunting competition, held annually on Kings Birthday weekend in Te Anau.
We are proud to be involved with both the Queenstown Milford Airport User Group and Te Anau Airport User Group. We also support SIRCET (Stewart Island/Rakiura Community & Environment Trust) by sponsoring hectares of reserved habitat for bird and plant life on Stewart Island.
Finally, our content production is always in collaboration with local artists and creatives.
Environment
We work closely with companies and initiatives which protect and give back to our natural surroundings.
The Fiordland Trails Trust is one such initiative, maintaining and building walkways and tracks in Te Anau and Manapouri. We also support the Department of Conservation’s Tamatea/Dusky Sound restoration project via Pure Salt and by displaying Pure Salt artworks and photography in our Te Anau Airport waiting area. We partake in other Department of Conservation initiatives such as pest control, which encourages restoration of native flora and fauna, as well as working with the experienced DOC teams protecting Kiwi, ‘‘Kākāpō and Takahē.
We work internally to minimise waste resulting from our daily operations and we encourage our clients and team to recycle. We use online operating systems where possible to reduce our paper usage.
Knowledge
We build a stronger team by continuing to look for ways to improve and share our industry knowledge.
As a team, we attend conferences and events relevant to our industry (and online, where possible). This helps to stimulate ideas and keep us up-to-date with the latest innovations.
We regularly ask for client and staff feedback, which provides another perspective around how we can improve our services and do better going forward. In turn, we share our local knowledge and history with our clients, strengthening the connection to these places.
We also support those who are keen to learn about the aviation industry, including Aviation Gateway students, and support work experience days.
Milford Helicopters are proud of how we are currently able to contribute to our people, place and planet. As we grow, we will always look to discover, develop, learn and understand our impacts. We will always remain open to improvement and conversations around how we can continue to do better.
