Name: Why Helicopter Airlines Failed
Uploaded: 2021-06-09T17:18:12.000Z
Duration: 13 min 11 s
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様態の副詞

The term “helicopter airline” is one that most are probably not familiar with.

Simply, it's an airline, transporting passengers or cargo, that uses helicopters.

Of course, not all helicopter companies are truly airlines, since many, if not most, civilian

applications of helicopters do not involve transport—the people or things inside often

Helicopter airlines have been around almost as long as helicopters themselves, but they

There was, however, a time when helicopters were believed to be the future of short-haul

The opportunity for helicopter airlines emerged around the 1950's.

When passenger aviation first began, cities' first airports were located rather close to

the cities themselves, as they just didn't need as much space.

Around the mid-century, New York's primary airport was LaGuardia, Chicago's was Midway,

DC's was National, Paris' was Le Bourget, and Tokyo's was Haneda—all airports fairly

These airports were relatively small and generally had short runways, but that wasn't a problem

because passenger demand was small and airplanes were too.

After all, the smaller the airplane, the shorter the runway needed, and vice versa.

These small airports even worked for the long-haul flights of the time since, in general, before

the 1950s, these were done on relatively small airplanes that would make multiple stops on

However, with the introduction of the de Havilland Comet in the 1950s, and other passenger jet

aircraft soon after, airplanes were growing larger, range was increasing, and passenger

That meant that all the small airports of the past wouldn't cut it and so, cities

looked to build larger airports more suited for the jet age.

New York's primary airport shifted from LaGuardia to JFK, Chicago's to O'Hare,

DC's to Dulles, Paris' to Orly, and Tokyo's to Narita.

Each of these larger airports were further from their city centers, though, as that was

In many cases, the smaller, closer airports remained in operation for domestic or regional

flights, but in other cases they closed down.

That's how we got to the reality today where many cities' airports are an hour's trip

Of course, the impact of this distancing varied depending on the type of flights passengers

For example, with a seven-hour flight from New York to London, the additional 45 or so

minutes it would take to get from Manhattan to JFK, over LaGuardia, only extends overall

However, on the one-hour flight from New York to DC, this would extend travel time by nearly

This trend of distancing of airports from their cities had little impact on long-haul

flights, but it had a huge effect on short-haul flights meaning that planes were now less

Nowadays, via JFK, it takes just 30 minutes more to travel from Manhattan to downtown

Charlotte than from Manhattan to downtown DC, even though Charlotte is more than twice

There are always diminishing marginal returns to air travel's efficiency as distance decreases,

but moving airports further from cities increased this to the point that, below a couple hundred

miles of distance, airplanes are not the fastest means of travel.

Helicopter airlines were supposed to solve that.

It was quite the niche business model concept, but the 1950's, 60's, and 70's saw a

small wave of these particularly in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

SFO airlines, for example, operated an extensive network around the bay area serving San Jose,

Palo Alto, San Francisco Airport, Oakland Airport, downtown Oakland, downtown San Francisco,

SFO Airlines' fares were quite reasonable—to go from Berkley to SFO cost just $9 which,

inflation adjusted, is the equivalent of $75 today.

With a flight time of 10 minutes and prices comparable to a taxi, the choice for the consumer

This route network was primarily intracity, all flights were within the same metro area,

but the hypothetical next phase of this business model's expansion was for intercity flights.

The idea was that helicopters could replace or augment short-haul flights as a quick way

From New York's Downtown Manhattan Heliport, which is just a ten minute walk from the New

York Stock Exchange, one could run regular passenger flights reaching Philadelphia in

30 minutes, Baltimore in 60 minutes, and DC in 70.

From Wall Street, the fastest one could reasonably travel door to door to DC in a car, train,

With a passenger helicopter leaving steps away, that would be cut down to two.

So, helicopters offered the possibility of intracity travel for the same price as taxis,

and intercity travel in half the time—with so much promise and potential, what went wrong?

Well, it turns out that it wasn't so much that anything major went wrong, but rather

that, when they started, a lot of things went right.

Most specifically, the helicopter industry in the US was supported by significant federal

Up until 1965, the federal government pumped almost half a billion dollars, inflation adjusted,

into passenger helicopter service in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

This made it relatively easy for these companies to break even, but then, in 1965, the subsidies

It was then all and exclusively up to the helicopter airlines themselves to turn a profit,

A Bell 206, for example—one of the most common passenger helicopters—costs about

$600 per flight hour to operate in terms of fuel, maintenance, and other variable costs.

On top of that, there's the cost to buy it, millions of dollars, the cost of the pilot,

hundreds of dollars per hour, the landing fees, up to hundreds of dollars per flight,

and the cost to run the company managing the helicopter.

This all means that a helicopter like this will cost in the thousands of dollars per

hour to operate, but it can only seat between four and seven people.

Helicopter companies rely on a steady stream of people who value an hour saved in the many

That market certainly exists, but at least in the 70s and 80s, it proved too small to

keep helicopter airlines afloat without subsidies, especially after a spate of high-profile accidents

highlighted the increased danger in comparison to airplanes and drove passengers away.

And so, one by one, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York's major helicopter

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Why Helicopter Airlines Failed

term

concept

infrastructure

impact