I recall a famous comment from a very senior Bristow Manager...."We make money operating helicopters....not selling them!"....when I asked why we had one of the world's oldest fleet of aircraft.
He was pretty well right SAS, if you don't make an operating profit, you will not survive. I have known a few really small operators who have used depreciation schedules, accrued a maintenance reserve but sold before the maintenance was due, made some FX gains and sold aircraft "making money" but then they have to be replaced.
BRS is partially diversified with UK SAR which is a huge contract at decent rates based on press releases and the 10Q and 10K filings ($220m per year) Compared to other operators, UK SAR puts BRS in a theoretically good position and they
should be able to make money. Sure, others are hurting with the oil downturn but without the cushion of UK SAR apparently not hurting quite as badly as BRS.