Helikopter - Bedre utsikter, men vanskelig for Bell 525 og Airbus H160 - AIN

Helicopter Market Turning Corner at Last, Say Pundits

by Ian Sheppard

 - November 5, 2019, 9:05 AM

After reeling from being virtually abandoned by the oil and gas sector after oil plummeted to $30 a barrel in early 2016, the helicopter market appears to have turned the corner and hourly operating prices are now reflecting a recovery, industry observers said today at the opening of the Vertical Flight Expo & Conference at Farnborough Airport. Even though exploration is now picking up again in the oil and gas sector, profits for helicopter operators are still very limited, they added.

The panel discussion centered mainly on changes in demand and supply, with several comments pointing to better times ahead. Panel moderator Sara Dhariwal, valuations analyst at Ascend by Cirium, reflected that everyone had been caught out and that the contagion had spread through the market. Asked whether there was still too much capacity in the market, panelist Clark McGinn, principal of Uplifting Advice, noted that in various regions there were too many big operators with an “overhang of equipment.”

“We have been through an unprecedented downturn so it’s up to us to encourage people back in,” said McGinn, asked about the mood of financiers on the market. He suggested that many deals had failed to materialize by “more bad news” along the way, such as North Sea crashes, but the panelists agreed that having financiers and lessors helping the industry develop was a good thing—even if terms were tougher to negotiate these days.

Alastair Fallon, aviation analyst with IBA Group, reflected it had been “a slow recovery” after the oil shock that started in 2014, which saw 20 percent to 30 percent of the helicopter fleet become surplus. “But we’re kind of getting there.” He noted how it affected the whole industry as contracts weren’t renewed and helicopters had to find new homes. “A third of the fleet wasn’t needed anymore when the market collapsed…that had never happened before,” McGinn said.

Alix Leboulanger, a research associate with Avascent, said operators had been looking at diversifying their activities into construction and other areas. For example, she said Airbus “managed to recycle some [Pumas] to the military.”

A key theme that came out of the session was that the new medium-heavy helicopters that are coming to the market, such as the Bell 525 and Airbus H160, could struggle as they are unproven and there are still many used large helicopters available. Leboulanger suggested the French military taking the H160 would help it become a proven airframe, but clearly the panelists agreed that after safety issues—most notably with the Airbus H225 accidents—many are wary of new types. Also, as McGinn pointed out, “The procurement guys [at operators] want to pay old prices for new types.”

The final point was that OEMs and operators could help the market by making helicopters more easily reconfigurable for new roles—the cost of converting an oil and gas large helicopter being prohibitive. McGinn gave as an example the Airbus H225s deployed in Africa, which was possible only because they had been ordered with the ability to fit sand filters. While lessor Waypoint had ordered this option and its aircraft benefited from it, competitor Milestone would have faced a $600,000 to $700,000 cost per airframe to retrofit these filters.