Exercise in cost-benefit ratio. Under the new CAA AOC charges keeping any helicopter on an AOC costs £££££. Depending on the size of your heli fleet, an R22 could cost around £1500 a year.
That's a lot of single-seat passenger revenue.
Of course, if our beloved governing body hadn't given in to the airlines and instilled a "per seat" charge for AOC, we might all be able to run our businesses at a profit. Surpised that there's been no discussion on pprune about these new charges - they will force a lot of small operators out of business.
An operator with 9 small helis on an AOC is facing an annual CAA bill of over £25,000 by April 09.