Private Helicopter Charter: When Is It Right for You?

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Air travel has given us a different world from that of our ancestors. As the Smithsonian Magazine put it, “The invention of the airplane shook the globe, and it never looked the same again.” More than a century after the Wright Brothers first soared aloft, the planet is connected in ways unthinkable for most of human history.

However, for all of their wonders, airplanes also have disadvantages. They require dedicated runway areas, with room to taxi for takeoff and landing. Flying into an area hit by natural disasters or accidents – when time is of the essence – is difficult or impossible if landing is necessary. Airplanes do well flying high and fast, but not low and/or slow. You may be able to fly in an airplane over a large city, but not directly into the heart of one. Airplanes are marvels, but not all-purpose tools.

If your preference is private air travel, and you’re looking to fly a long distance at a set time to a location with an established airport, a charter or broker who handles airplane flights is perfect for your needs. However, if you’re thinking of a shorter jaunt, perhaps to a remote area without significant airport infrastructure, or to the midst of a busy metropolis during rush hour, you might want to consider another option – a helicopter. If you’d like to learn more about how helicopter charter could benefit you, read on.

Metallic Hummingbird

Helicopters are defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as “aircraft with one or more power-driven horizontal propellers or rotors that enable it to take off and land vertically, to move in any direction, or to remain stationary in the air.” Though attempts at vertical flight can be traced back to 400 AD, the first real helicopters did not appear until the 20th century, with Germany the first to place a helicopter into mass production during World War II. Developers struggled to combine a helicopter’s agility with both power and control until jet-engine technology was incorporated in the 1950s.

Today, helicopters are commonplace. Law enforcement uses them to monitor and search, hospitals to fly critical patients, television stations to observe traffic, militaries to transport soldiers, and much more. The ability of the helicopter to hover like a hummingbird (albeit with vastly more power) allows it to provide services not possible with a plane.

“Airplanes are really great if you want to carry a lot of stuff and go a long way,” says Laura McColm, lead pilot for the Lafayette Louisiana base of Metro Aviation, under contract to Acadian Ambulance. “Helicopters are really great if Grandma’s had a heart attack and you want to land in her backyard and take her straight to the hospital.”

But it’s not just police, doctors, firefighters, media types and troops who can benefit from helicopters – the average traveler can as well. “A helicopter gets you from A to B quickly and does what you want,” says Yiannis Christodoulides, director at charter broker Zela Jet. “You avoid airports, you avoid crowded areas – that’s the idea.”

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Flying for Fun

Helicopter charter can open up new travel destinations. Zela Jet, in addition to offering airplane charter service primarily for the European market, provides options for helicopter charter for travel among the more than 3,000 islands in Greece. Customers can reach smaller islands that may not have airports much faster than with boats, and travel to larger islands quickly and easily.

“Even if you take a private jet from one island to another, it’s going to be a longer process, because you have to go through proper customs and then wait for a car to arrive. The helicopter’s just, bang, bang, bang, you’re done,” Christodoulides says.

Trips over land can be easier in a helicopter as well. Christodoulides says that helicopters are popular in the Alps in the winter for skiers looking for the highest high – mountain-wise – as possible, and for jaunts into Monaco (which has no airport of its own). Travelers can combine a private jet trip with a helicopter to pinpoint their arrivals in terms of specific locations and/or times.

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Flying for Work

Helicopters can also come in handy in your professional life. Jana Tobias, a corporate helicopter pilot for a large company based in the Northeast, regularly flies employees and executives from Connecticut to New York City or Boston. “Why take a helicopter? Time. Flying in the helicopter to New York is less than an hour one way – a train or a car pretty much triples that,” Tobias points out. “For a meeting that needs to be in person, that could add a full other day.”

In addition, helicopters allow you to avoid the unpredictability of traffic on the roads (as well as potential train breakdowns). “You have one accident on one of those expressways and it’s completely shut down,” Tobias says.

Safety First

With all of helicopters’ advantages, however, there is one factor that may make some would-be fliers nervous – safety. Helicopters have more moving parts than planes and less redundancy (usually only one engine instead of two, for example). The rotors that make helicopters so agile are inherently unstable. Helicopter pilots typically fly close enough to the ground that they have little time or space to react to surprises.

Sometimes, those safety concerns make the news in a big way. In 1990, singer Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash after a concert. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the owner of the Premier League’s Leicester City soccer club, died in a helicopter crash in 2018. NBA star Kobe Bryant, his teenage daughter Gianna, and seven other people were killed in a helicopter crash in California in early 2020.

A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the last tragedy indicated that the probable cause was the pilot experiencing spatial disorientation after flying into thick clouds that had grounded other helicopters the same day. While the pilot had achieved an instrument rating – meaning he could fly in situations with poor visibility, relying on his instrument readings – his experience flying in actual instrument conditions rather than a simulator was very limited.

“Proficiency comes back to how frequently you’re flying and how much training you’re doing. When you fly instruments, you are looking at your instruments,” Tobias says. “The concern with instrument flying is that if you’re not used to it, your body, your mind and your ears will all lie to you. What you think you see and feel often is not correct. I believe training and continuous application of instrument flying, along with flying with two pilots whenever possible, provide the best defense against spatial disorientation.”

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Whether the Weather

Another aspect of safety concerns with helicopters is weather. While planes typically soar high enough to avoid weather once they get off the ground, helicopters usually fly at a much lower altitude – 10,000 feet above the ground or lower, as opposed to 40,000 feet or higher. Certain weather conditions are much more likely to be an issue for whirlybirds as a result.

Most helicopters lack de-icing capabilities, meaning that flying in freezing precipitation is difficult or impossible. However, while the end of winter typically halts snow and ice, the spring and summertime can herald thunderstorms. “We can’t fly within 20 nautical miles of a thunderstorm cell due to lighting and turbulence,” Tobias says. “We can’t circumnavigate storms the way a jet can.”

When mulling over safety concerns, though, perspective is key. As per Aviation Outlook, helicopters do have a higher fatality rate than commercial airlines – 1.19 fatalities per billion miles, as opposed to 0.07 – and a higher accident rate than private planes (9.84 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, as opposed to 6.29). However, helicopters aren’t typically used in place of planes – at least in the U.S., they’re used in place of cars, which have 7.3 fatalities per billion miles. While pretty much every form of mechanized transportation is statistically more dangerous than flying commercial airlines (trains included), helicopter flights are significantly safer than vehicular trips.

How can you minimize risk while chartering helicopters? Start by asking your charter company about their training requirements – do they do the bare minimum, or do they emphasize going above and beyond? Inquire about their maintenance approach – helicopters quite literally have a lot of moving parts that can be finicky. See if they operate with one pilot, or two.

And, most of all, if a charter company decides a trip must be delayed or even canceled due to safety concerns, assume they’re correct. The NTSB determined one of the factors in the Kobe Bryant crash was “the pilot’s likely self-induced pressure to complete the flight.” Air ambulance pilot McColm, on the other hand, has been told by her employers that crew safety trumps all, including patient condition. “If the weather is too bad to fly, there are no negative consequences from my company if I turn down a call,” she says.

Place to Land?

Though helicopters theoretically can land in all sorts of locations, helicopter charter operators typically expect to land at helipads. You’ll want to have some awareness of the helipad situation at your preferred destination to know all of your options. While helipads require far less space than airports, where they are (or aren’t) may surprise you.

New York may be the largest city in the U.S., but it largely makes do with three helipads, all below 34th St. While rooftop helipads were once not uncommon in the Big Apple, a fatal 1977 helicopter accident on the Pan Am Building led to the banning of rooftop helipads in the city. In contrast, the building code in Los Angeles mandates that new buildings reaching over 75 feet accommodate emergency landing by helicopter, to allow for more firefighting options. While many of L.A.’s helipads sit idle, enough are used regularly that the city ranks in the top 10 globally for helipad prevalence. (São Paulo, Mexico City, Tokyo and Seoul all have more.)

Tobias adds that helicopters can also land at airports, most of which have their own dedicated helipad area (though they can accommodate helicopters elsewhere as well). If winds around her intended landing spot in NYC aren’t favorable, rerouting to Teterboro or La Guardia is another option. While airports typically have no trouble handling helicopters, you’ll want to keep in mind that you may need to figure out transportation from said airport to your preferred destination should circumstances change your plans.

Trading Off

Choosing a helicopter charter definitely includes tradeoffs. The agility and flexibility offered by helicopters come with a cost – fuel. They burn more to generate lift than planes of comparable size due to their greater weight and the energy required to keep their rotors turning. Carrying enough fuel to make a trip safely may mean less room for passengers and any luggage they may have. Clients occasionally hire Zela Jet for double helicopter flights to the same location – the first flight brings the people, the second the bags.

Also, with less room comes fewer bells and whistles. Private jet flights offer bathrooms, food service and other amenities not part of the helicopter experience (though some do provide Wi-Fi). Helicopter cabins are a lot noisier than those in planes. And, though air ambulances are equipped to fly at night, many passenger helicopters are not. “Comparing a helicopter to a plane is like comparing a motorbike to a car,” Christodoulides says. “A car will have trunk space and a bigger fuel tank. It does the same job but is more comfortable. Planes are like cars – helicopters are like motorbikes.”

However, those in the industry say flying in a helicopter is like nothing else – both for pilots and for passengers. Helicopter charter can let you in on the fun. "It's really amazing to learn how to harness so much energy. We’re able to see sunsets, sunrises and awe-inspiring views,” Tobias says. “Landing on a helipad in New York with a helicopter on either side with the blades turning never gets old.”

Your own helicopter journey could start right here for a selection of the finest helicopter charter operators worldwide. Search by location or type and find a travel solution fit for your needs.