While people may not have been traveling the globe over the past year due to the Covid pandemic, used helicopters certainly were and that provided a bump for Direct Helicopter's business, according to Dave Urban, CEO of the international rotorcraft shipping services provider.
“If we go back in time to last year’s Heli-Expo in Anaheim, we were on such a roll,” Urban told AIN. “So then when Covid hit, I thought we were going to go down, and we actually went up.” After closing the books on 2020, he found that the year had actually exceeded 2019, setting a new record for the Canada-based company, which offers full-service, turnkey helicopter relocation services. “Revenue was down, but profits were up, just in the nature of the deals,” explained Urban. “Volume was the same, we still did around 150 aircraft for the year.”
A typical job for the company involves a helicopter being flown to the company’s U.S. base at South Carolina’s Greenville Spartanburg International Airport, where it is disassembled by technicians on the ramp, packed on a pallet, and loaded aboard a 747 freighter flight, where it is carried either to its final destination, or a point close enough for it to be reassembled and flown there. “They want a guy who will insure the aircraft, take care of taking it apart, packing it up, doing all the export customs, doing all the import customs and delivery, and we’re really the only company you can call to do all that,” he said.
Urban is also a major shareholder in the Germany-based Senator International, with access to five 747-400BCFs and a 767 freighter operated by Magma Aviation to carry cargo. The company flies six cargo flights a week from South Carolina to Germany and two from Chicago. Other scheduled routes include Johannesburg, South Africa; Singapore; Brisbane, Australia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Mexico, and through its Senator connection, Direct Helicopter has the flexibility to request additional stops or diversions to pick up or drop off a helicopter along the way.
Urban noted that changes in the global economy over the past year have had unforeseen effects on his business. “Ever since Covid started, [Europe and China] are just dumping product in America, but the thing is, America really ain’t [isn’t] doing too great in exports, so those 747s are full from Germany, the rest of Europe, and the Far East into America, but they are half-full going back,” he explained. “What that has done for Direct Helicopter’s USA exports has really driven down air freight prices. I can beat any commercial airline on price out of America, not by a couple of thousand bucks but by like 10-grand on my own Senator flight, and that’s why we’ve been so busy with those exports out of America.”
Those exports have run the gamut of models and manufacturers, from a Robinson R22 to a Sikorsky S-92. “So many aircraft have changed hands it’s unbelievable,” noted Urban. “You’ve got good buyers for [used civilian helicopters] right now; people are really spending money expanding their fleets. Whether it be VIP, EMS utility, it doesn’t matter.”
Urban explained that “yacht season” is ramping up, with light helicopters wanted for the small helipads carried on the sea-going mansions, and he has several such transport jobs lined up.
Another change the company was required to make in its operation due to Covid was in its engineering staff. Typically, Urban would spend thousands of dollars a week on airline tickets to send his contracted technicians around the world to assemble helicopters for service on arrival or to take them apart in preparation for transport. With the dearth of commercial flights and the health restrictions in effect, the company instead found itself relying upon local talent, namely the maintenance staff from his customers.
“I didn’t have to search too much because I already knew all these clients, so if I say to them, 'I’ve got four or five grand, can you send me two guys for two days to help me put a 407 back together,' they are in,” said Urban. “It was bumpy at the start, but as we went into the summertime, it just became routine. Now we’ve got guys making money who weren’t making money before, picking up the slack and completing this turnkey process.”
There was one major example where that wasn’t the case. A pair of twin-engine Bells was purchased by a customer in Kenya and needed to be in service by a specified date. With a drop-dead point in effect that could void the transaction, Urban added in a crew transport fee to the contract and chartered a Gulfstream G550 to carry 10 technicians round trip. “We’re spending $250,000 on a jet and we’re bringing everyone over and we’re going to be on time with the contract, which we were. Everyone was happy and all the bills got paid.”
Transporting parts for helicopters is another area where the company has seen growth of late. “North America to Africa, that’s our biggest lane right now, with a lot of parts needed over there,” Urban said. Large, ungainly parts such as rotor blades are one of the biggest tickets, and the company has formed a partnership with leading blade repair shop Advanced Composite Structures to expedite transport.