What are Helicopter Charters?

If you want to make a reservation to be picked up from one place and dropped off at another (Point A-B), then you need a helicopter charter. Helicopter charters allow passengers to reach remote locations or simply just arrive closer to their destination that a commercial aircraft allows. The required certification for passenger transport flights is a Part 135 Certification (Air Carry Certificate). These types of operations are generally surrounded by multiple regulations, government approvals, and safety requirements. This is how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ensures that all commercial flights are safe and up to industry standards. People seek helicopter charters for various reasons, including hotel pick-up or drop-off, airport transfers, corporate flights, and special event charters (like concerts or sporting events).

What are Helicopter Tours?

Helicopter tours tend to attract tourists' attention because of their ability to cover large areas in a short amount of time. Places like Las Vegas, New York, Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Alaska are perfect for helicopter tours because of the sightseeing opportunities. General aviation operators must follow Part 91 rules and have an LOA from the FAA in order to operate an aircraft for tours. With Part 91 helicopter operations, a pilot must take off and land in the same designated area (Point A-Point A).

How Urban Air Mobility Optimizes the Air Charter Industry

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) envisions a more efficient and more readily accessible aviation transportation system than today's current charter services. Very similar to an airborne Uber or Lyft, UAM can broadly be defined as a transport mechanism that enables on-demand, highly automated passenger, or cargo-carrying air transportation services within and around a metropolitan environment.

What does UAM need to become a reality?

For UAM to become a reality in the next few years, it will need to be composed of an ecosystem that considers the evolution and safety of the aircraft, the framework for operation, access to airspace, infrastructure development, elimination of fossil fuel burning aircraft, and deep community engagement. The initial UAM ecosystem will utilize existing helicopter infrastructure such as routes, helipads, and Air Traffic Control (ATC) services, where practicable given the aircraft characteristics. Looking toward the future, the FAA is working to identify infrastructure design needs for these aircraft. Additionally, the FAA expects to develop a new vertiport standard in the coming years. A vertiport is a collective term referring to areas designed specifically for UAM aircraft to take off and land.

For the UAM concept to mature to operational viability, understanding stakeholder business and operational needs is important for incorporation into, and understanding the impact to, the National Aviation System (NAS). Accordingly, the FAA has collaborated with NAS and participated in the industry stakeholder engagements to identify the desired operations and environment for these aircraft. With traffic and commute times on the ground increasing, there is an increasing demand for alternative transportation methods. With anticipated decreasing operational costs due to economic scaling, the volume of UAM operations will increase substantially. At present, the degree to which some, or all, of these UAM operations will require current Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems and services is undefined. To the degree that these operations require current ATM systems and services, the increasing number of UAM operations may soon challenge the current capabilities of the ATM infrastructure and Air Traffic Control (ATC) workforce resources.

Solutions that extend beyond the current paradigm for manned aircraft operations to those that promote shared situational awareness and collaboration among operators are needed. As the FAA continues to mature the UAM concept, additional support systems for UAM operations may be introduced. The introduction of the UAM concept presents new approaches to aviation which will allow a new class of operations to provide an alternative intermodal transportation method within urban areas where surface congestion causes significant travel delays.

Several industry leaders and other stakeholders have already invested heavily in this new concept and technology with the goal of eventually being able to provide the public with personal transportation or cargo services. Personal transportation services may be scheduled, on demand, or part of intermodal transportation links within major urban areas. Advances in technology have enabled detect-and-avoid (DAA) and other advances in operational capabilities. Cloud networks and mobile devices now support fleet management and customer interactions for on-demand service. Greater public acceptance of aircraft integrity and automation in the ride sharing economic model will also help enable increased UAM operations.

According to the World Bank, the global urban population has grown by around 3.44 billion in the last 50 years and is anticipated to continue further. Over 55% of the world's population lived in urban areas in 2018, this proportion is expected to grow to two-thirds of the world population. Unlike the rapid growth in urban population, the urban infrastructure has not been able to grow at a similar rate, resulting the in widespread congestions and other problems adversely affecting both the global economy and the environment. Although authorities have undertaken several modernization efforts toward streamlining the use of infrastructure resources without undergoing a radical transformation at the fundamental level, the scope of such efforts is limited.

The situation bottlenecks productivity and affects the economy. For instance, traffic congestions in the United States account for a loss of as much as $120 Billion annually. Traffic congestion not only results in economic losses and wastage of time, but it also challenges the governments. Additionally, the growing on-road passenger vehicle volumes, which burn fossil fuels, is also polluting the environment considerably.

A 2020 Study by the U.S. government demonstrated that making more roads is not a long-term solution to traffic congestion. The report cited Jackson, Mississippi, as a compelling example. From 1993 to 2017, the city expanded its road network by over 60% while its population grew only 9%; despite that, traffic soared by 317% during the same period. With traffic congestion and urban road mobility posing a great challenge, governments and technology companies have started to look at UAM as a viable passenger and cargo transport option.

As the UAM is a safe and efficient air transportation system where the passenger-carrying air taxis operate above populated areas, there may be significant time savings. Moreover, air taxis used for the UAM are mostly electric powered or fuel-cell powered. Hence, they help in reducing atmospheric pollution. In this regard, many governments are looking at UAM as a potential means of future transport.

Currently, several research and development projects are underway to determine the operational and economic feasibility of UAM systems in real-time scenarios. Therefore, such efforts are anticipated to drive the market in focus during the forecast period.

Other UAM Market Dynamics

Flying cabs are becoming a reality as over 200 businesses of all forms and sizes are venturing into the market studied to manufacture, build, or operate these air taxis over the next five years. These new vehicles will be multi-rotor or multi-winged electric vehicles that can take off and land vertically, seat two-six passengers, and have a 30–300-mile range.

Although the market offers huge potential, UAM needs to overcome several challenges, like technology, regulatory, public acceptance, air traffic management, and physical infrastructure, to name just a few. In addition, it needs to resolve a pilot challenge.

In the future, these vehicles will fly autonomously, but that could easily take a decade or more due to the aforementioned challenges. Until autonomous flight becomes a reality, the industry must recruit and deploy thousands of pilots, which is an important but less visible challenge.

Based on the ongoing progress and investments from the major aviation companies, piloted air taxi and shuttle services are expected before 2026.

U.S. Urban Air Mobility Market

The urban air mobility market is expected to create an entirely new industry. The manufacturers are continuously taking initiatives to develop various innovative infrastructural concepts, such as better tracking systems and efficient connectivity. The key development focus areas in the urban air mobility industry include improvements in battery technology and other forms of propulsion systems to offer longer ranges and endurances.

Based on the recent developments in the U.S. urban air mobility market, aircraft prototypes have already been manufactured and tested in several countries. However, the regulatory framework that governs the urban air mobility industry is yet to certify the vehicles for commercial usage. It is expected that the cargo delivery drones will be commercialized by 2023, but the wide acceptance of passenger transportation is expected to be a bit slow.

Growth/marketing strategies will help investors in understanding the revenue-generating strategies adopted by the players operating in the U.S. urban air mobility market.

U.S. Urban Air Mobility Market by Range

The 20 – 100 km range segment is expected to lead U.S. UAM market due to increased demand for faster mobility transport for short distances and increasing traffic congestion for average daily commuters nationwide.

The technological limitations such as a lack of better battery technology and higher noise pollution are currently restricting the other range segments in the industry, but the range of 20 - 100 km is balancing the factors perfectly and is delivering the most suitable product for the market.

U.S. Urban Air Mobility Market by Operation

The passenger transportation aerial vehicles are highly regulated under the guidance of government agencies such as the FAA in the U.S. Drones and other aerial vehicles used for passenger transportation must follow a stringent set of rules to get certified.

According to some industry experts, the passenger transporting vehicles will be requiring a piloted mode of operation in the early stages of commercialization to ensure passenger safety. Thus, the market is expected to be dominated by the piloted mode of operation during this initial forecast period from 2023-2035.