“With the oil and gas downturn we have extra equipment that we can put to use here,” Mr Baliff said. “We always knew oil wasn’t the be all and end all.”
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Oil rig helicopters ditch roughnecks for the jet set
Chopper shuttle services tap high-end market after demand from offshore platforms falls
Bristow and Era, two of the largest providers of helicopter services to the oil industry, have struck deals with Blade, an app-based aviation group backed by big media investors, to use their helicopters on routes to upscale second home locales.
Blade, whose recent passengers have included Ryan Seacrest, the long-time host of American Idol, takes customers from Manhattan to weekend getaways such as the Hamptons and Nantucket. It also flies out of Los Angeles to beach communities such as Malibu.
The offshore oil and gas industry, which is a heavy user of helicopter services to carry people to and from rigs and platforms, has been particularly hard hit in the industry downturn since 2014. “Bristow is suffering along with our clients, such as Shell and BP,” said Jonathan Baliff, Bristow’s chief executive.
The company has sought to diversify, including providing rescue helicopters to the UK’s coast guard, but private aviation was an obvious area of growth.
“With the oil and gas downturn we have extra equipment that we can put to use here,” Mr Baliff said. “We always knew oil wasn’t the be all and end all.”
The move by the company and its rival Era into private aviation represents “the confluence” of the oil downturn with new crowdsourcing technologies which make helicopter travel more affordable, said Rob Wiesenthal, the founder and chief executive of Blade.
Companies have slashed their spending on offshore exploration and development of new projects, and there is much less activity now than before the slump in oil prices. At the end of 2013 there were 61 rigs working offshore in the US, according to Baker Hughes, the oilfield services group. Last week, there were just 22.
The decline internationally has been less dramatic, but still severe: there were 306 active offshore rigs outside the US at the end of 2013; last month there were 202.
Blade was founded by Mr Wiesenthal, a former Warner Music and Sony executive. The company is backed by some of media’s biggest names, including David Zaslav, chief executive of Discovery Communications; Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet; Barry Diller, chairman of IAC; and Bob Pittman, chief executive of iHeartRadio.