The great revival in the helicopter industry - myth or miracle?

[Jackonicko]

HAI was abuzz with people telling us all how very healthy the industry is, with full order books and almost insatiable demand, and with manufacturers able to sell everything they build.

So why are Sikorsky, Bell, MDH, and all the other smaller US manufacturers not sending a single civilian helicopter to the Paris air show? Not one, between the whole lot of them.

Do they not need to make the effort in Europe, because European orders would just be too much to cope with?

Do they think that such participation isn't worth the candle, and have better things to do with every aircraft at their disposal, or at the disposal of their distributors?

Or do they think that the boom is a US phenomenon only, and that dirt poor Yoorpeen queers can't afford helicopters?

Or is all this talk of boom a lot of danglies?

[Hilife]

When you think Farnborough (BAE Systems) and Paris (EADS), you think military and airlines, so why waste limited budgets targeting such shows.

Visit EBACE later this month and you will see that US business aviation budgets are being wisely spent on more relevant European shows.

[Jackonicko]

But they've always gone to Paris and SBAC before - when times were harder and budgets were tighter, so why not now?

And why do EADS and Agusta Westland seem to be going 'mob-handed' when Sikorsky won't even send an S-92?

[SASless]

Jacko,

Perhaps it is much simpler than you think....maybe they simply are real Americans and do not have passports.:ugh:

[airborne_artist]

But they've always gone to Paris and SBAC before - when times were harder and budgets were tighter, so why not now?

And why do EADS and Agusta Westland seem to be going 'mob-handed' when Sikorsky won't even send an S-92?

Perhaps they have analysed the business case, and concluded that their presence at the show did not generate sufficient marginal business to warrant the cost.

In a market with very few suppliers, and with a fairly small number of customers, it may actually be cheaper to give the customers a flight ticket to go to see the product at its home base.

I rememember going to a huge (non-aviation) trade show in 1995; one exhibitor had spent $20 million on their presence. They filed for Chapter 11 in 2002.

[Jackonicko]

Even if we accept that everything in the garden is lovely, that the non-appearance of Bell and Sikorsky at Paris are sensible commercial decisions, that the cancellation of the 417 was not a symptom of any form of problem, etc. how deeply rooted is this miraculous (supposed) turn around?

Barry Desfor, President of HeliValue$ Inc. and Publisher of the Helicopter Bluebook has predicted that:

“as long as the price of oil stays above $55 to $57 per barrel, helicopters in general will continue to be in strong demand."

Is that all there is to it?

Is it all driven by a vibrant offshore sector?

[ppheli]

I think you need to look at the fact that the Paris show is (a) in France and (b) in odd numbered years. Let me explain

France - the majority of the French industry buys Eurocopter because they either like "buying French" or they cannot imagine that any other manufacturer could produce a helicopter better than EC - a patriotic but naive view. Take a look at MD, for example - they don't even have a distributor in France for these sorts of reasons. The very few A109s operated commercially in France are only there because the operator is majority owned by an Italian operator, and so it goes on. Apart from Robinsons, France is almost entirely EC and its predecessors.

Odd years - later this year it's Helitech in the UK, an industry focus much more important than Paris for the helicopter industry. Anyone who is anyone in helicopters goes to Helitech and HAI, but would be much less likely to spend time going to Paris or Farnborough because they cover such a wide swathe of the aerospace industry and thus provide no rotary wing focus. EC _have_ to be at Paris, imagine the uproar if they refused! The major exhibitors look at this even/odd year thing and consider where to put their marketing dollars, and make decisions accordingly. Bell's return to Farnborough in 2004 was their first time there for many years - they had previously decided that ILA Berlin was a more important spend for even-number years and then tipped the balance and now spend less at ILA.

Looking just at the UK, the total fleet is on approx 8-10% annual growth in terms of number of airframes, although I'd be interested to see how that turned into flying hours. What about number of current private pilots and of commercial pilots?

Eire is working on a growth rate of more than double the UK figure, so it's certainly not a US phenomenon.

Oil sector. Just take a minute to work out the turnover in the helicopter industry (generally in big helicopters flying many hundreds of hours a year) which is directly attributable to oil and gas. Then work out the proportion that part is of the total turnover and you will see why Barry said what he did - think about the fact that very few Jetboxes fly as much as 500 a year and their hourly rate is a small % of an S-92 or a Super Puma.