Arafat Ara
Helicopter service is booming in the country, driven by tycoons seeking to avoid traffic jams that clog up highways to their factories, and a new breed of nouveau riche exploring funs in the air.
Two-three years ago the firms renting out choppers were struggling to stay above water as helicoptering was branded as a luxury --- a once-in-a-life-time service --- needed only in funerals and emergency medical trips.
But these days choppers are a must for business magnates taking foreign buyers to guided tours to their industrial hubs and rich men desperately in need to avoid tailbacks stretching scores of miles.
"Nowadays, top businessmen hire helicopters almost everyday mainly for travelling outside Dhaka," said Chowdhury Fazle Sohan, manager operation and coordination of South Asian Airlines.
Sohan said crippling congestions are the main driver of the commercial choppers growth, but an increasing number of people are hiring helicopters for carrying dead bodies, medical emergencies, political campaigns and weddings.
Some 75 per cent of the clientele are businessmen, 10 per cent use the service for funeral and medical reasons and the rest 15 per cent for weddings, according to South Asian Airlines.
"More and more parvenus are using choppers for wedding ceremonies. The groom rides a chopper to the bride's home in a village or rural town in a bid to flaunt his new found riches," said another official.
South Asian Airlines has two choppers to their modest fleet, but officials said the company may have to add more helicopters to cope with growing demand.
Square Air is its lone competitor. But Civil Aviation officials said three more conglomerates, Sikdar group, PHP Group and Meghna group, have lined up to launch commercial helicopter services very soon.
Sohan said foreign investors who have set up factories at the export processing zones and rich expatriates visiting their home villages made up a big chunk of the clientele.
Hartals are the best time for the service as people seeking to avoid deadly protests and demonstrations queue up to hire choppers, he said.
South Asian Airlines charges Tk55,000 per hour with the minimum hiring time 30 minutes. Square Air charges Tk 100,000 per hour.
Helicopter takes 80 minutes for up and down to Comilla, 130 minutes to Chittagong, 120 minutes to Sylhet and 30 minutes to Savar.
Square Air's director operations and chief pilot Gr. Capt. M Abu Zafar (Retd) told the FE that since its launching in April last year its business has grown by around 50 per cent.
"Though Square Air service is mostly used by its own corporate purposes, it is now becoming popular to the country's well-off and industrialists," said the chief pilot.
Group honchos account for 50 per cent of Square Air's riders, general passengers 25 per cent and government ministers and officials the rest 25 per cent.
Commercial helicopter service bled financially as the transport was deemed "excessively luxury" and was not familiar to passengers, said Group Captain Zafar who also served South Asian Airlines and the now defunct Aero Technology Limited (ATL).
"In the first days of our services, we used fly three or four hours a month. But now they are operating from 50 hours or more a month," he said.
Officials of the two airlines, however, said profit is still negligible as the cost of chopper maintenance eats up lion's share of the revenue.
Nitol Group's ATL was the first helicopter company launched in the country with one Euro Cop-35 helicopter in 2000. South Asian Airlines Ltd introduced two Robinson helicopters in the same year.
ATL's helicopter has been grounded for the last four years due to shortage of passengers, unavailability of fuel and high maintenance cost, its officials said.
Traffic jams, new riches drive commercial helicopter service
FE Team | Published: August 14, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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