I must admit, I have wondered why the aviation industry has let the oil giants drive down costs so much. If we all stuck together and agreed not to drop prices pre 2014 levels then what are they going to do? Ferry everyone by boat and be done with helicopters or pay a little more for the helicopters?
Problem is the operators are the little guys between the OEM's and the Oil Giants, despite their apparent scale. They don't have the muscle to kick back enough against Airbus/EC, LM/Sikorsky, Leonardo/AW/ etc on the cost side and get squeezed by the big bad customers who commoditise the service.
You couldn't collude to fix prices in any way under Anti-Competitive legislation and the last time there became a duopoly in the NS to try to regain margin, the green 'n' yellow just sponsored the new Bond to come in and shake it up again. Same in the SNS with the smaller operators. There's always someone willing to do it for €x if the customer wants it.