Now we get to the 'nitty gritty' of it all.
SkySista says: "...a pat on the back to all of you who are giving freely of your time an energy to bring relief to this region..."
To those who did truly give freely of their time and energy I join SkySista and take my hat off to you, but I would suggest that the majority of relief workers, in all fields, were accepting some form of remuneration. Aid work and disaster relief is a business.
And why not? Like millions of others that couldn’t contribute something significant in the terms of skills appropriate to the relief scenario, I donated cash. I expected that the cash would purchase, at a commercial rate, the services that were needed – including helicopter flight time.
As has been said many times before there are two kinds of people in the helicopter world, mercenaries or missionaries; and there are not many of the latter. Even the missionaries were selling surplus helicopter time to other relief organizations but at below market rate (US$700 per hour for a Bell 206L4 for example). The time that was not ‘sold’ will be paid for from donations that are raised by the missions and in the souls that are converted to the beliefs of that particular mission.
A very large effort was provide by the government helicopters of many countries. Perhaps there was no direct charge for this service but it wasn’t free, the taxpayers in the countries paying for the services.
I am skeptical enough to believe that the owners of helicopters based in as far-flung locations as North Island, New Zealand, and Oregon, USA, did not send their machines to Indian Ocean locations expecting to make a big loss. I acknowledge that several organizations took a commercial risk by not getting prepaid before they dispatched the helicopter, but I would suggest that very few ‘caught a cold’ commercially from the exercise.
As indicated in Cyclic Hotlines post Naturelink made a large effort, however AirServ is their established business partner and as is indicated in the report it was a commercial venture. They have done a good job and I hope that the result appears on their company’s bottom line.
It would be interesting to know whether they, along with all the other contributors that ‘parachuted’ in to places like Sumatra, ‘played the game’ whilst making their profits, or was the amount of flying that was available just too good to miss. Did standards and business ethics disappear out of the window? How did these organizations handle the issues of Operating Permits, Flight Time Limitations, adequate maintenance facilities, duplicate inspections, withholding tax, work permits for staff, etc.? How many of the laws of the host country and the country of register of the aircraft were flaunted, perhaps to the detriment of the helicopter industry? How were the bribes that were paid out by the helicopter crews to jump the queue for the refuel truck justified, and accounted for? That is just one example of many forms of corruption that took place, I am sure the list is long! Many of the images of the disaster areas that have been published were, I would suggest, taken in violation of the security laws of the country in which the disaster took place. Not every country permits aerial photographs to be taken at will.
In short my question is this. Does everyone believe that the activities, as a whole, of the helicopter operators (both civil and military) that took part in the relief work benefited our industry? If yes, why is there little sign of growth in the indigenous helicopter industries in the countries affected? Why have the ‘fat cats’ pulled out and left only the Low Cost Operators active in country?
As the instructions used to say “Light blue touch paper and retire immediately”!