Airbus Helicopters has grown its HCare Smart and HCare Infinite customer support program enrollments to 2,400 helicopters, representing 20 percent of its installed worldwide fleet. The contracts cover 250 operators in more than 70 countries, according to Christoph Zammert, the company’s executive vice president of customer support and services.
Customers are evenly split between civil and government users, he said. “What is important for our military operators is to have the ability to predict their budgets. HCare is a very good tool for that and provides a good level of cost control.” At present, HCare contracts skew to customers with medium to heavy helicopters, but “it is becoming more frequent on our light twins—the H135 and the H145,” said Zammert. He pointed to recent HCare contracts signed with air ambulance provider Air Methods, covering 111 of its H135 and H145 aircraft.
Zammert added that multiple factors—the current atmosphere triggered by the pandemic, growing competition for government resources, and contraction of certain industry sectors—make HCare an attractive option for both military and civil customers. “With cost pressures increasing, customers tend to want to have cost protection and that is what HCare is about,” he said.
HCare was a large contributor to Airbus Helicopters’ overall revenues in pandemic-ravaged 2020, which increased by 4 percent compared with 2019, though new helicopter deliveries fell 10 percent. “HCare played an important role in that,” Zammert said. “We’ve seen overall growth in our services and support revenue while at the same time flying hours during the pandemic have been reduced by about 10 percent compared with 2019. We have been able to grow the value chain for our customers, delivering added value beyond purely flight hours like spares and repairs. We offer maintenance activities, technical support, and digital services and they have proven to be quite resilient."
HCare spans five domains: material management, helicopter maintenance, technical support, training and flight operations, and connected services. The program starts out with Easy on-request catalog services and Smart, with four by-the-hour options, before building up to Infinite, with full availability commitments. HCare Infinite requires the company to guarantee the customer’s full fleet operational availability, including maintenance, technical support, and the supply of spare parts, tools, and consumables.
All the services are accessible via the AirbusWorld online customer portal. More than 3,500 regular daily users visit the portal. The portal is home to the Airbus customer marketplace that went live for U.S. and European customers in 2020, with additional regions being added progressively. Canadian customers will be added in 2021. With the marketplace, customers can access an array of parts and supplies from third-party vendors. To date, eight specialized vendors serve customers from more than 50 storage locations in Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. Around 40,000 offers are available for European customers.
Four categories of purchase are on offer—chemicals, shelving and storage, tools and ground support equipment, and hardware—chosen for their high degree of demand, particularly for maintenance operations. “We are connecting customers with other vendors and suppliers, giving them a one-stop solution to all their support needs,” said Zammert, who likened the marketplace to Amazon.com, albeit much smaller and more specialized. “I don’t claim today that we are as good as Amazon, but it is an ambition we have,” he said.
Zammert said that Airbus plans to expand HCare to cover legacy aircraft—aircraft that are no longer in production, such as several models of the Puma series and the EC120B light single. A program for these aircraft will be launched later this year. Legacy aircraft represent 20 percent of all hours flown by Airbus helicopters. “We will have specific supply-chain solutions for parts no longer in production. We see an increasing need for those sort of material support contracts,” he said.
While HCare does not have the ability to incorporate live health usage and monitoring systems (HUMS) data, that is an area Airbus is investigating, Zammert said. “We are working on real-time HUMS solutions, but we haven’t deployed them on an operational scale. Depending on customer requirements and capabilities, we can accept post-flight data files.” Larger operators, such as oil and gas customers, send files on a daily basis and other types of customers send those files with less frequency, Zammert said.
HCare also is increasing its training offerings to include more remote training and the increased use of online and virtual reality technology. “We are applying the lessons we learned during the pandemic to VR and online training,” he said. “This will play an increasingly important role,” in HCare training options going forward, he said. Zammert also noted that an H145 D3 simulator will be installed in the company’s Grand Prairie, Texas training center this May.
Overall, Zammert said that Airbus is refining HCare to make the program “more modular. Customers need more tailor-made solutions and the ability to pick and choose what reflects their needs the most,” he said.
Airbus Helicopters has grown its HCare Smart and HCare Infinite customer support program enrollments to 2,400 helicopters, representing 20 percent of its installed worldwide fleet. The contracts cover 250 operators in more than 70 countries, according to Christoph Zammert, the company’s executive vice president of customer support and services.
Customers are evenly split between civil and government users, he said. “What is important for our military operators is to have the ability to predict their budgets. HCare is a very good tool for that and provides a good level of cost control.”
At present, HCare contracts skew to customers with medium to heavy helicopters, but “it is becoming more frequent on our light twins—the H135 and the H145,” said Zammert. He pointed to recent HCare contracts signed with air ambulance provider Air Methods, covering 111 of its H135 and H145 aircraft.
Zammert added that multiple factors make HCare an attractive option for both military and civil customers. “With cost pressures increasing, customers tend to want to have cost protection and that is what HCare is about,” he said.
HCare was a large contributor to Airbus Helicopters’ overall revenues in pandemic-ravaged 2020, which increased by 4 percent compared with 2019, though new helicopter deliveries fell 10 percent. “HCare played an important role in that,” Zammert said. “We’ve seen overall growth in our services and support revenue while at the same time flying hours during the pandemic have been reduced by about 10 percent compared with 2019."
HCare spans five domains: material management, helicopter maintenance, technical support, training and flight operations, and connected services. The program starts out with Easy on-request catalog services and Smart, with four by-the-hour options, before building up to Infinite, with full availability commitments. HCare Infinite requires the company to guarantee the customer’s full fleet operational availability, including maintenance, technical support, and the supply of spare parts, tools, and consumables.
All the services are accessible via the AirbusWorld online customer portal. More than 3,500 regular daily users visit the portal. The portal is home to the Airbus customer marketplace that went live for U.S. and European customers in 2020, with additional regions being added progressively. Canadian customers will be added in 2021. With the marketplace, customers can access an array of parts and supplies from third-party vendors.
Four categories of purchase are on offer—chemicals, shelving and storage, tools and ground support equipment, and hardware—chosen for their high degree of demand, particularly for maintenance operations. “We are connecting customers with other vendors and suppliers, giving them a one-stop solution to all their support needs,” said Zammert, who likened the marketplace to Amazon.com, albeit much smaller and more specialized.
Zammert said that Airbus plans to expand HCare to cover legacy aircraft—aircraft that are no longer in production, such as several models of the Puma series and the EC120B light single. A program for these aircraft will be launched later this year. Legacy aircraft represent 20 percent of all hours flown by Airbus helicopters. “We will have specific supply-chain solutions for parts no longer in production. We see an increasing need for those sort of material support contracts,” he said.
While HCare does not have the ability to incorporate live health usage and monitoring systems (HUMS) data, that is an area Airbus is investigating, Zammert said. HCare also is increasing its training offerings to include more remote training and the increased use of online and virtual reality technology. “We are applying the lessons we learned during the pandemic to VR and online training,” he said. “This will play an increasingly important role,” in HCare training options going forward, he said. Zammert also noted that an H145 D3 simulator will be installed in the company’s Grand Prairie, Texas training center this May.
Overall, Zammert said that Airbus is refining HCare to make the program “more modular. Customers need more tailor-made solutions and the ability to pick and choose what reflects their needs the most,” he said.