Arifur Rahman Rabbi
When commercial helicopter services in Bangladesh were trying to recover losses of their worst year since the service began in Bangladesh, the second wave of Covid-19 pulled down their business again.
Helicopter operators said that number of flights of most of the companies drastically reduced after the spread of the novel coronavirus but they were yet to assess the financial loss.
More than half a dozen private companies in Bangladesh now have about 30 helicopters on their fleets to run commercially.
Major industrial groups initially bought helicopters for their own use and later they went into commercial operation.
Meghna Aviation Limited, Square Air Limited, BRB Air Limited, Impress Aviation Limited, Partex Aviation Limited, Bashundhara Airways, BCL Aviation Limited, R&R Aviation Limited, South Asian Airlines Limited, and Bangla International Airlines Limited are now operating commercial helicopter services.
Industry insiders said that there was a demand for helicopters for corporate charter, air ambulance, vacation and sightseeing, marriage ceremony, carrying passengers, and carrying coffin but after the onset of Covid-19, the demand went into the negative.
Helicopter operators usually charge Tk 60,000 to Tk 1,00,000 per hour of flying along with 15 per cent Value Added Tax and they also charge Tk 5,000 to Tk 6,000 per hour as waiting charge.
Square Air Limited’s director (flight operations) Syed Shakhawat Kamal said, “If our helicopters used to fly for around 100 hours in a month during the normal time, it now decreased to 10 to 15 hours. People are not coming now.”
Impress Aviation Limited’s chief engineer Mohammad Mohiuddin, a retired squadron leader, said “Covid wreaked havoc on the industry. If there were 600 hours of flight in a year, it is now 100 hours. If there were 50 hours of flights in a month during normalcy, it now went down to 10 hours. The number of our flights has decreased to 20 per cent from 100 per cent.”
Mohiuddin said that foreign buyers in the RMG sector, industrial visitors, officials of various projects usually prefer helicopters to visit their sites to save working hours in cases of emergency. But now foreigners’ tour of Bangladesh stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.
Mohiuddin said that the owners of the helicopters also hold a key share among the helicopter users as they visit their business site on a helicopter. Occasionally, a helicopter is used to carry brides of grooms during marriage ceremonies but the number is very low, he said.
BRB Aviation Limited’s chairman Md Mozibur Rahman said that their helicopters were mostly used for their own works and on very few occasions they rent out their helicopters. ‘So, we can't talk about loss or profit in that way,’ he said.
Meghna Aviation’s chief operating officer Anwarul Haque Sardar, a retired air commodore, told The Business Post that the aviation sector was in trouble across the globe after the pandemic began and the same was the situation in Bangladesh.
Anwarul said that before the restriction on aviation was imposed after the spread of coronavirus, his company used to operate 86 to 87 flights a month. “After the imposition of lockdown, the number of flights came down to six in a month,” he said.
Until March 2020, nine companies operated on an average of 360 helicopter flights in a month and they considered it a good business but when the number of coronavirus cases and deaths continued to surge, the number of flights dropped to 35 in April 2020, said Anwarul citing data of aviation operators’ association.
“This is called aviation depression. We had a positive growth of 4.5 to 6 per cent and now it went down to the negative. It went down to about minus 12 per cent,” said Anwarul.
Data showed that the helicopter companies were on their way to recovery as the number of flights got increased in early 2021 before the second wave of Covid-19 infection hit the industry hard again.
Anwarul said that all the companies operated 35 flights in April 2020, it was 71 in May, 91 in June, 119 in July, 155 in August, 209 in September, 282 in October, 381 in November and 240 in December, he said adding that in January 2021 the number slightly increased with 331 flights.
In February 401 flights were operated and 368 in March. The data for April is yet to be published but it will not be more than 100 flights, said Anwarul.
Asked about the profits of the helicopter services and its market, Anwarul said, “The commercial helicopter services cannot be judged on profits. It has to be judged by their connectivity.”
“New industries are being set up in Bangladesh. The buyers or investors are coming and see the connectivity. If they do not get this connectivity, they would not be interested to invest here,” he said.
When a country's industry grows, it has a market and demand and it will be there, he added.
