Flying ambulances do a slow take-off over high costs, infra issues

Performing a surgery or life-saving manoeuvre mid-air has its own challenges, but without special fittings, it's downright risky

Come election season and a clutch of sky taxi operators see business, literally, go through the roof. While companies that charter helicopters for VIP services to politicians touring the countryside say it’s open season when electoral battles kick-off, the mainstay for what they offer remains restricted to ferrying CEOs to-and-fro offshore sites.

While there are commercial opportunities for ‘flying ambulances’, lack of adequate demand and the high cost of renting out choppers still act as deterrents. “There is no organised pure-play medical chopper service in India, right now,” says Captain K N G Nair, who runs Thumby Aviation, adding that the reasons for that are technical. “For starters, a medical aircraft has to be hooked up with oxygen tanks, IV facilities, stretchers and operating equipment,” he says 

Performing a surgery or life-saving manoeuvre in mid-air in a flying craft has its own challenges, but without special fittings, it's downright risky. A standard Bell helicopter could be kitted out to support that, but the demand doesn’t warrant that commercial expenditure just yet.

To add, Nikesh Goswami, vice president, sales and marketing, United Helicharters says that of the aircraft in use for medical evacuations, helicopters would account for barely five per cent of it all. “A chopper brings with it a lot of vibration even if it is equipped with the facilities for medical treatment, and stability wise it can't compete with a smaller plane like say a (Beechcraft) King Air C-90 or a (Beechcraft) B 200, which also costs less.” A chopper's costs increase with the amount of time it's airborne – the more hours up in the air, the more it costs.

Sure, business houses such as RIL, the Poonawala Group and Raymonds do own helicopters, but those are largely used in-house. Shailendra Singh, former joint managing director of media company Percept, recalls how he took Michael Douglas to Aamby Valley to scout for shooting sites for a potential movie and adds that the one industry that originally involved leasing helicopters was Bollywood. Film stars would travel to ND Studios in Karjat which would take fourteen minutes as opposed to around 90 minutes or more by road. “That's still very prevalent,” he adds. 

So what kind of helicopters are mostly in operation in India? Nair says it’s the Bell 407, a four-blade single-engine civil utility chopper that costs around Rs 250 million; the Bell 412, a twin-engine, rugged all-weather chopper that costs about Rs 700 million, and Eurocopter's EC I30, and EC145, both light choppers that range around Rs 500 million.

Nair adds that helicopters are actually more expensive to operate and maintain than smaller private jets. “A chopper has many more rotating parts that need constant maintenance and periodical replacement which isn't the case with jets,” he adds.   

There's more power required to thrust a 3,000-kilogram aircraft vertically into the air and then keep it airborne which also burns more fuel. Then there are service costs. On an average, Nair says that maintenance and tuning can set back an owner Rs 100,000 for an hour of flying time and for a year, about Rs 100 million. 

Renting a six-seater whirly-bird will cost Rs 85,000 per hour plus the Goods and Services Tax, with an industry standard cost of around two-and-a-half hours minimum charge per day. Add to that accommodation, local transport and extras for the crew that usually includes a pilot and an engineer.

The general infrastructure for choppers is still evolving even as private helipads abound. For example, Gujarat has around 75 helipads and Karnataka around 120. “Public landing pads for choppers are limited,” Goswami says. 

In Mumbai, for instance, there's the helipad at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse, the one at Pawan Hans Aerodrome in Juhu. Hence, it’s more common to see medical evacuations happening for crew members at ONGC's offshore rigs by helicopter. 

There's no argument, however, on the need for the skies to open up to chopper services. Goswami acknowledges that a chopper evacuation for a gun-shot wound victim or a heart patient can save an hour or two, and can mean the difference between life and death.

If a patient has to travel from suburban Andheri to a speciality hospital in Bandra, in peak traffic the chances of survival in an emergency can go from being good to slim.  Central points between Pune and Mumbai's highway would, for example, be best served by a helipad that could assist in picking up accident victims and transporting to either Pune or Mumbai. 

One of the long-standing issues for helicopter travel,  Singh says is that the amount of planning required to synchronise a trip is so complex that it actually becomes easier to drive the distance within most major cities today. If the permissions from the city can be worked out, “the skies would literally open up,” he says.