A new report from consultancy Air & Sea Analytics paints a dire picture of challenges facing the offshore helicopter industry. The firm finds that “The ability of the industry to keep enough serviceable aircraft active to meet demand is now in question.” The company characterized the situation as “sleep-walking into a crisis,” saying, the scenario “has been developing over a period of years and it will take years to resolve.” Data supporting this conclusion comes from the consultancy’s upcoming "Heavy & Super-Medium [helicopter] Fleet Census."
“The challenge is that whilst we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of contracted aircraft in the heavy and super-medium segment, this is not translating yet into a comparable increase in aircraft flying," said the report. "Behind closed doors, operators are hugely frustrated that they cannot return aircraft to service due to supply-chain issues. Dynamic components such as main gearboxes and rotorheads are in short supply and lead times as long as four years are being quoted for some parts. At the present time, the industry is returning aircraft to the line only slightly quicker than they are coming off it,” Air & Sea Analytics warned. It concluded that within the next 12 months, “there will be end users that see lower availability of their service and interruptions to their crew change activity.”
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