Spotting a helicopter in the Indian skies is a rarity. One can imagine why. In a vast country such as India, there are just about 250 helicopters flying. While in a smaller city such as Sao Paulo, Brazil, there are close to 650 choppers ad in US, about 6000.
Typically, in India, helicopters have been used for very limited purposes – offshore, operations, VIP movements, corporate executives travel and as charter flights. Emergency medical services, search & rescue operations, police patrolling, traffic handling etc… are unheard of. In fact, so limited has been its use in India that there still is no academy to train helicopter pilots in the country.
However, this is now changing. Captain Karan Singh, CEO of Indo-Pacific Aviation & vice president of Business Aviation Association of India says he expects the chopper market to grow by 20% year on year for the next five years.
Earlier, buying a helicopter and operating it were prohibitively expensive and could only be affordable by a limited few. But with new & cost effective models coming in, and the growing affluence in smaller towns, there is a slow but a sure increase in the demand among individual users and small businesses.
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