HELICOPTER ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL
TESTIMONY ON AVIATION SECURITY AND
THE FUTURE OF THE AVIATION INDUSTRY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRCTURE COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 25, 2001
Roy Resavage
President
Helicopter Association International
1635 Prince Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Telephone: 703-683-4646
Fax: 703-683-4745
Good morning Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Aviation Subcommittee. I would like to thank you for holding this hearing on a topic, which is critically important to the civil helicopter industry and to all of the commercial general aviation community. I appreciate the opportunity and I am honored to appear before you today and express the view of the Helicopter Association International (HAI) concerning Aviation Security and the Future of the Aviation Industry.
HAI is a not-for-profit, professional trade association of over 1400 member organizations in the United States and throughout the world. Since 1948, HAI has been dedicated to promoting the helicopter as a safe and efficient method of commerce, and to the advancement of the civil helicopter industry. Member companies include operators of civil helicopters, manufacturers, and peripheral industry supporters. Many of the members are small businessmen and women. HAI's members safely operate more than 5,000 helicopters approximately two million hours each year.
A great deal of concern was directed to Congress over the last week in identifying the economic drag applied to the airline industry as a result of the horrific terrorist assault on humanity. Everyone quickly grasped the enormous peril that the airline industry faced, and a financial package was developed that would allow the various effected entities to continue their vital service. However, in the rush to perform good deeds for the airline industry, Congress appears to have neglected the other major pillar of national air commerce, Commercial General Aviation services.
The business aviation community provides a large measure of the aviation lubrication that is needed to keep our country's economic engine running smoothly. It provides major services to our economy and promotes numerous improvements to our quality of life issues at a level that could not be obtained by the commercial airline system in isolation. Not only are the services essential in providing increased efficiencies to the business world, commercial general aviation is a major stimulus to the economy through its payroll, capital assets in the form of aircraft and infrastructure, and related industrial support throughout the commercial sector. The required safeguards that were implemented in the wake of the airline crashes essentially grounded the General Aviation fleet. The revenue streams were totally cut off and as of today there is no plan to even consider options that could keep this important sector of our economy viable.
Today I will focus on the Commercial Helicopter Community, an extremely important sub-set of General Aviation. A great deal of our activity goes unnoticed, but it has a profound effect on all of our lives. Helicopters with their unique handling characteristics are often the only acceptable form of aviation service that can perform special missions. Everyone is familiar with the life saving EMS helicopters, the law enforcement helicopters, fire fighting helicopters, tour helicopters and corporate helicopters. Probably less is known about helicopters engaged in utility and pipeline patrol, aerial forestry, agricultural application, off shore oil exploration, and the list goes on.
The majority of these operations are conducted under visual flight rules (VFR) and most helicopter pilots and the aircraft they fly are not certified to fly under instrument flight rules (IFR). When the FAA started to reopen our aviation system, VFR flight presented the greatest security challenges to the FAA. Therefore, it was the slowest sector to be restored, and the predominately VFR helicopter community has suffered a disproportional handicap in returning to any semblance of normalcy.
A recent HAI survey of our members indicates a $24.5 million dollar per week revenue loss, and that only represents 9% of our membership. Many report the need to furlough employees and most have time lines for shutting down operations within the very near term. Not only would this result in a terrible burden to the small business owners that are the majority of this industry, but it would result in the cessation of vital services to the communities they support. The FAA is struggling to restore regulations that will return more of our members to the air and that is absolutely essential. However, that will not entirely fix our problem. Like the airlines the opportunities lost can't be made up. To the contrary, it is likely that a period of diminished aviation activity will continue for some time into the future. Small business operators are limited in their ability to stimulate new business opportunities. Additionally, a contracting pool of available credit will adversely affect helicopter operators. This, coupled with expected increases in insurance premiums, will eventually trickle down and further burden the helicopter industry.
I would savor the opportunity to explore more efficient ways of controlling VFR Commercial Helicopter operations with you, but I know that is not really what you are in search of. So I will finish my remarks by imploring you to consider the financial burden that General Aviation and helicopter operators in particular will endure if you do not include them in a meaningful relief package. You will not harm many stockholders because these owners are small business people who can't share their risk. Everything they have is invested in their business. Please don't use the excuse that this segment is too ill defined, and that everyone in society can't have a claim for relief relative to this disaster. Commercial Helicopter aviation can quantify the losses that are a result of this tragedy, we are not asking for relief for any other purpose.
I respectively urge you to take action to provide the resources required to assist in stabilizing the civil helicopter industry. I will be most happy to provide any additional information or respond to any questions that you may have. Again, I want to thank you for conducting this hearing on such a very important topic and taking the concerns of the civil helicopter industry into consideration.
Submitted by:
Roy Resavage
President
Helicopter Association International
1635 Prince Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Telephone: 703-683-4646
FAX: 703-683-4745
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