The Asia Pacific civil helicopter fleet saw a 4.5 percent increase in 2015 over the previous year, according to Hong Kong-based aviation brokerage, charter provider and consultancy Asian Sky Group. Here at Heli-Expo, the company released its second annual year-end Asia Pacific Region Civil Helicopter Fleet Report, which notes that the growth leader in 2015, as in the previous year, was China, which added 118 helicopters for a 20 percent increase year-over-year. The report also notes the size of helicopter fleets in two-thirds of the Asian nations either remained static, or actually contracted over the past year.
Australia represents the largest helicopter market in the region, with more than 2,000 rotorcraft in operation, and its fleet grew last year at a rate of 3 percent. That is not expected to increase this year as the country grapples with a weakened Australian dollar, a decrease in mineral exports and the slumping global oil-and-gas market.
“One of the engines of growth that was certainly influencing the fleets in the Asia Pacific region was the oil-and-gas business,” noted Jeffrey Lowe, Asian Sky’s managing director. “So if you look at 2012, ’13 and ’14, that was certainly driving a lot of expansion in the fleets but that was gone for 2015.” According to the report, oil-and-gas drilling rig utilization worldwide is down to 70 percent compared to 95 percent several years ago, with the Asia-Pacific market reflecting similar trends. Last year, the offshore segment in the region saw limited to zero growth with nearly a third of the existing offshore fleet of medium and heavy lift helicopters either idle or preparing for other mission utilization at year end.
The four largest users in the region-Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China-together claim 73 percent of the 6,015-strong helicopter fleet, which is dominated by Robinson (1,882), Airbus Helicopters (1,599) and Bell Helicopter (1,195). While New Zealand also notched a 7 percent increase in its rotorcraft fleet in 2015 with 53 helicopters (81 percent of them pre-owned) added to its fleet, Japan saw a 3 percent contraction due largely to the retirement of older piston, single-engine and medium-size helicopters, and their replacement with fewer but newer models like the S-76D and AW139.
Asian Sky is here at Heli-Expo exhibiting with Avpro (Booth 2607).