Indian helicopter market to grow 8-10 times in next five years: Blade India

The government’s new drone policy and helicopter policy, announced last year, will help the Indian helicopter market grow its fleet around 8-10 times in the next five years, Amit Dutta, co-founder and managing director, BLADE India, told Moneycontrol in an interview.

He added that with the adoption of electric helicopters and urban air mobility drones in the industry, the cost of flying a helicopter is expected to fall considerably in the years to come, which will drive up demand for the segment.

BLADE India is one of the largest helicopter operators in India.

The new drone policy is expected to accelerate the adoption of urban air mobility drones in India. The use of both electric helicopters and urban air mobility drones will be regulated under the government’s vertical aviation policy.

Dutta, who is also the head of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s panel on vertical aviation, said that they have identified around 40 routes in India that can be converted into dedicated helicopter corridors and had submitted their recommendations to the government earlier this month.

Edited excerpts:

What has been the progress on the implementation of the new helicopter policy announced last year that involved the setting up of dedicated hubs and corridors for helicopters?

At the moment India only has 300 helicopters catering to the country’s entire demand, which is very small when compared to a country like the US which has around 15,000 helicopters operating.

The current government has often talked about the woefully low penetration of helicopters in India and is also very aggressive in increasing helicopter penetration in the country.

In that effect the government has already set up helicopter corridors from Juhu to Pune and Mahalaxmi Race Course (in Mumbai) to Pune and vice versa. They are also working to set up helicopter corridors from Gandhinagar to Ahmedabad (in Gujarat) and between Nagpur and other cities in Maharashtra.

While there was some delay because of the outbreak of the third wave of COVID-19, we expect the corridors announced by the government last year to become operational soon.

Have you heard yet from the government on abolishing landing charges and parking deposits for helicopter operations?

The government is yet to scrap landing charges and parking deposits. I am also going to meet Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday (April 3) to bring up this issue.

Having said that, I expect the government to implement it soon. Increasing helicopter penetration is of utmost importance to the current government and even at (civil aviation expo) Wings India 2022, the issue of helicopter penetration was discussed on a priority.

The government has also started the helicopter acceleration cell and has been actively working with the industry to bring about changes to both policy and regulations to increase helicopter penetration.

The government has stopped looking at the helicopter industry through the lens of the traditional fixed-wing machine (aircraft) and is instead now looking at the industry as a separate sector within aviation.

We are also in constant discussion with the government to do away with mundane laws for the helicopter industry.

What more can the government do in order to grow the helicopter operations market?

One of the biggest reasons for the low penetration of helicopters in India is the cost of flying in a helicopter when compared to taking a flight. Now the fuel cost is the same, staff costs are also similar, but it still costs more to fly in a helicopter. The reason for that is because helicopters carry fewer passengers and at the moment helicopters are only permitted to fly from sunrise to sunset in India, which on an average comes to around 8 hours a day. This limits the ability of companies to sweat out their machines and bring down the cost of flying in a helicopter.

We have put forward a few measures to the government to look at extending flying hours for helicopters so that the cost of flying in a helicopter can be brought down even further and demand for helicopters increases in India.

We are also working with the government to allow single-engine helicopters to land on tall buildings. At the moment only twin-engine choppers are allowed to land on elevated platforms on buildings, though the Indian market is mainly made up of single-engine helicopters.

We are also in discussions with the government to allow single-engine choppers to be used in medical evacuations.

What are the trends that you foresee in the helicopter industry over the next few years?

I think the cost of operating helicopters will significantly come down in India, once the landing charges and parking deposits are abolished and companies start taking advantage of the special provisions provided by the government in procuring helicopters through GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City). I think leasing or buying helicopters from GIFT City will help a lot of Indian companies reduce the cost of operating helicopters and will make the segment more affordable.

Another major change that I expect will come across in the next few years is the adoption of electric machines in vertical aviation.

The adoption of electric helicopters and urban air mobility drones will open up the market even further as they will reduce the cost of operations, will not be loud, will have no carbon footprint and will transform urban air mobility for both passenger operations and delivery of goods.

Globally, discussions are ongoing to introduce electric air taxis by 2024 and even if India takes two to three more years to launch these services, it will be a disruptive change in the vertical aviation market. So I expect the fleet of the Indian vertical aviation market to increase from around 300 at the moment to at least a couple of thousand in the next five years.

What other dedicated helicopter routes do you expect to come up in India? What routes are BLADE India targeting?

As part of the CII taskforce, we have presented a list of 40 helicopter corridors in the country. We submitted the list t0 the government this month and we are expecting that in the next few months the government will declare a few more dedicated helicopter corridors out of the 40 we have suggested.

However, while we have identified 40 dedicated helicopter routes, companies are also free to offer services on other routes as well which have helipads. Having a dedicated corridor just helps in getting easier regulatory approvals to fly helicopters.

At BLADE India we are looking to start operating between Mumbai and Alibaug, Pune and Alibaug. We are also looking to start operating flights to Mahabaleshwar from Mumbai and Pune.

Currently, BLADE India is mostly operating in two states but we plan to increase our operation to six states in the next six months.

We are planning to open up services in Goa, we are looking at a route to connect North Goa and South Goa.

We are also looking at markets in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Last year you had inducted five new H125 helicopters into your fleet and had entered into a partnership with Airbus. What are your plans for adding new helicopters in 2022-23?

We are talking to Airbus, and even discussing with state governments on how we can add helicopters to our current fleet, because we expect demand to rise for our services in 2022-23.

Ever since we restarted our operations in Karnataka and Maharashtra last November, we have seen demand for our services rise month-on-month and at the moment we are operating at nearly full capacity.

But it takes close to 12 months to get delivery of any new helicopter from the time you place an order, so because of that, we are also considering acquiring older choppers.

Given the current rates you are offering, how are you managing to meet the costs of operating your helicopters in India where aviation fuel prices are at an all-time high?

At the prices that we operate at, rising fuel prices do not have a major impact on our operations. Furthermore, with the increasing demand for our services that we have seen in the last four months, we have been able to sweat out our helicopters and mitigate the rising fuel cost.

Ever since we restarted our operations in Bengaluru in December we have been flying non-stop. We have operated 22 days in a month and every month since December we have seen a rise in occupancy and have operated around 300 flights since then.

And every month we have carted around 200 customers on our Bengaluru routes.

Have you seen a jump in bookings for May and June, the period when most people take their summer vacations?

Yes, we have seen a nearly 40 percent jump in our booking for May and June when compared to the current months, as customers are looking to visit places during the summer vacations.

We offer regular services from Bengaluru to Coorg, Bengaluru to Kabini and these services have seen a rise in demand in May and June. We also offer chartered services to fly from Bengaluru to Hampi, which has also seen higher traction.

We are also seeing a rise in people looking to travel from Mumbai to Aamby Valley and Pune and Aamby Valley and the highest rise in demand for our services has been seen in flights to Shirdi from both Mumbai and Pune.