UK-based Helicharter has increased its fleet from four to 14 helicopters in the last 16 months.

Md Gary Slater said: “In the last week alone we’ve added a Squirrel and another LongRanger and we’re pursuing new contracts all the time.

“Helicharter has been a hub of activity recently, which seems to be the opposite of what is occurring with many companies at the moment.”

The company has four R-22s working within its flying school and a mixture of JetRangers, LongRangers and Twin Squirrels dedicated to charter.

“There are nine LongRangers in the country, of which we have three. These along with the Twin Squirrels do a great deal of cargo work and the JetRangers are used frequently for pleasure flying.

“Helicharter has also established a good reputation for filming since we filmed the opening credits for the UK soap opera Emmerdale,” said Slater.

The md puts Helicharter's success down to being proactive. “We’ve built up our business through ad-hoc charter work.

“The training school has also introduced new people to the table, but we won't take on extra work until we have the aircraft to cover it.

“Every machine here is principally a helicopter that I’ve sold to the owner.

“We explain to a potential purchaser how they can buy an aircraft and then lease it back to us.

“We take care of the management side and then pay them an hourly rate,” said Slater.

Currently the aircraft coming into Helicharter’s fleet are pre-owned. “We’re not lucky enough to have anything brand new at the moment. We’ve overhauled quite a few JetRangers ourselves and put them back to a new condition, giving customers a new JetRanger for old JetRanger money.

“The expansion of our fleet has given us the flexibility that if one JetRanger is in maintenance, we have six others and if one LongRanger is out of action, we have two others. I won’t take a machine on until I know I can operate it.

“The worst thing you can do is sell someone a helicopter and not have the work for it.

“I wait until the other aircraft are committed for double the number of hours they can fly before taking on another,” he said.

Helicharter does own a couple of aircraft itself, but admitted it didn’t have the resources to buy the number of aircraft it actually needed. Slater said: “Over the last few years the company has developed training and on-site fuel and a lot of money is being invested into our facilities. Our system works well because a number of our owners are local and we get on with them very well.

“We try and keep the bill sensible so customers come back. We also generate work ourselves, rather than sitting and waiting for the phone to ring.”

The fact that Helicharter is able to offer an expanded fleet without investing large amounts of money has given the company a sense of security.

Slater commented: “We’re not overly concerned with what happens in the market over the next couple

of years because our prices range from £20 a seat to whatever the job requires.

“We’re in a no-lose situation, because if the work does die down we’re only leasing the aircraft on an hourly rate.”