More bad news for Airbus
Helicopters Super Puma family
20
JULY 2016 - BY: DOMINIC PERRY
- LONDON
Airbus Helicopters’ beleaguered Super Puma family has received more bad
news as one of the type’s biggest operators gained approval to shed the vast
majority of its fleet and the Airbus Group chief executive detailed the scale
of the grounding crisis.
CHC Helicopter on 15 July
received permission from a Texas district court to reject leases on an initial
tranche of 65 helicopters as it works through its planned Chapter 11 financial
restructuring.
In total, the Vancouver, Canada-headquartered operator intends to cut
99 helicopters from its fleet: 86 on leases and 13 financed as part of a credit
facility.
The vast majority of this total are Super Pumas – either H225s or older
AS332 variants. Analysis of four separate court petitions shows that CHC plans
to cut the H225 fleet to just three units from 40 at present, while AS332
numbers will shrink to 14 from 33.
A further hearing to consider
the remaining 34 aircraft will be held on 4 August.
CHC’s latest financial results,
in which it recorded a $437 million full-year net loss, note that its plans
“will remove from our fleet almost all H225 helicopters”.
Included within the total is the
airframe destroyed in the 29 April fatal crash near Bergen Flesland airport
operated by subsidiary CHC Helikopter Service.
Investigations into the accident
led European regulators on 2 June to issue an emergency airworthiness directive
grounding all civil H225s and AS332 L2s over fears about gearbox safety.
And Airbus Group chief executive Tom Enders,
speaking during an investor presentation on 13 July, made clear the extent of
the problem: around 80% of the Super Puma fleet was “now on the ground”, he
said.
Enders says the impact is being
felt both in terms of deliveries and in the support and aftermarket business.
Around one-third of Airbus Helicopters’ near-€6 billion ($6.63 billion) annual
revenue is accounted for by support activities, with around 10% of the total
generated by the Super Puma family, he says.
However, the emergency
airworthiness directive does not cover military variants of the helicopter and
a number of countries, notably France, continue to operate their H225Ms.
For those operators, the
manufacturer has mandated the “short-term withdrawal from service” of a
specific type of second-stage planet gear – the part identified by Norwegian investigators
– “to be managed through a retrofit programme”.
“This is aimed at improving the
in-service behaviour of epicyclic modules and will provide increased
reliability and safety across the fleet,” says the text of an emergency service
bulletin.
Airbus Helicopters has given no
timeline as to when the Super Puma fleet might return to service.
Updated
to correct fleet figures
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