It goes back to the Air Advisers and C&P people at the oil companies - who is going to sign up their workers to an H225 contract? Answer - no one for the foreseeable future.
Agreed - if you don't work in E&P it is easy to miss the commercial point. All the major helicopter people were suffering long before Bergen
CGG a major services company baked by the French state filed for bankruptcy recently, their revenues are only 30% of what they where before the slump. Many other service companies are 50% or less. So the problems go beyond the 225 or helicopters. Since Bergen the North Sea has moved to the S92 and mid-sized types but there have been no significant new orders for new builds announced to meet the gap other than a couple to be used for SAR contracts for Statoil. It has been about redeploying existing machines.
Even if this hadn't happened there would have been a big downturn in demand for helicopters. The timing of the Bergen incident was such that it was probably the final nail in the coffin. The 225 and other Pumas certainly have some sort of future but there are few signs in the O&G market that it will be needed here.
Last edited by birmingham; 5th Jul 2017 at 11:35.