2007 will be another year of growth for the industry!

Where are we on 1 Jan 2007? The population of Australia is 20 million, New Zealand has 4 million and Papua New Guinea is approaching 5.5 million. These nations operate over 16, 000 civil and military aircraft. As at 1 Jan ’05, Australia has 1,165 helicopters on the CASA register and 565 on the NZ. PNG figures are not available, but it is estimated they have 60-80 helicopters.

Over half of the Australian and New Zealand fleets are piston engined. The Robinson Helicopter Company is represented in Australia with 501 of which 372 are R22s and 129 are R44s. NZ owners have 136 R22 and 63 R44. Single engine turbines are prominent in NZ, where the Hughes 500 series leads with 95. By comparison the Bell 206 at 170 is the most popular in Australia. It is no secret the French helicopters are selling well and Robinson would sell more if only they could produce more helicopters. The stronger Australian dollar and the even stronger economy has created a healthy helicopter industry.

Australasia has about 200 military helicopters, and these numbers will grow in the next decade as very expensive equipment replaces our aged helicopter fleet. In this area the French appear to dominant with the Tiger and NH90 orders.

The last decade has seen an interrupted growth of our economies, despite a world recession. As a result the helicopter fleet in Australia is grown at 7% pa for single engined helicopters and over 20% for the twin fleet. Australia has a helicopter growth rate of 7% or more about twice the annual GDP rate. The NZ fleet has even stronger growth rate of over 8%. It took eleven years to double our fleet to 1 Jan 05 figures. Experts predict we will double again in a much shorter time!

The fleet will double again in only six years!

How do we rate internationally? On a world scale Australia is about sixth in helicopter ownership and New Zealand recently entered the top ten. By world standards our military helicopter fleets are small at around 200. One unusual feature of our industry which should be noted by Asian nations embarking on the development of a General Aviation industry is the large number of privately owned aircraft used for business and recreation. Of the 12,500 aircraft on the Australian register, about 6,500 are privately owned. That is over 50%. We must not forget the thousands of very light aircraft registered to recreational organisations. Some suggest that these could be 5,000 – 7,000 in number.

The next five years? Based on the fact we grew from 649 eleven years ago to 1,165 today then we should see our fleet grow to about 1,700 machines in 2009. An increase of about 575, or an extra 100 helicopters per year. Assuming a working helicopter flies 400 hours per year, they will fly 230,000 hours more in five years than today. If a pilot flies 450 hours per year, then we will need an extra 510 pilots.

New Zealand has shown a strong expansion similar to Australia’s; say at 8% pa. Starting with 565 machines we should see 760 in 2009, or an increase of 219. These machines will fly an extra 87,600 hours and they will need an extra 194 pilots.

Overall both Australia and New Zealand have very healthy economies and they will be boosted by the Asian recovery to our north. China’s economy is growing at over 18% pa, and their government is trying to slow things down to avoid inflation. One interesting trend in the region is the increase in number of up market twin engined helicopters, predominately in the emergency services sector, which has grown to over a dozen bases in NZ and over 30 in Australia. Overall this segment has fared the best, a 700% growth in eleven years. There are now over 80 twins in Australia and about 30 in NZ. The civil sector now has more twins than the military.