High Function, Low Impact Air Services: Helicopters in Alaska's industries.

• Author: Simonelli, Isaac Stone
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

Helicopter services fill a specific need in Alaska's extraction industries. The mining and oil and gas industries rely on rotary-winged aircraft for everything from site testing to crew changeovers in the vast, remote areas in which these industries operate.

With many of the large, legacy helicopter operators based Outside leaving the state to seek higher returns in the last ten years, Alaska's helicopter services are now dominated by mid- and small-sized operators, explains Chris Maynard, the vice president and director of sales for Pathfinder Aviation.

"At one point of time, we had Erickson Helicopters here, you had Bristow, you had most of the major Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operators up here, but they've all pulled out of Alaska to chase higher-margin oil and gas work around the world," Maynard says. "That leaves more of the mid-sized companies serving the marketplace, and we're probably the largest oil and gas operator in the state right now."

Flying for the Oilfield

Pathfinder, founded in 2001, originally focused on utility work, which mostly caters to transporting officials and scientists from various state and federal bureaus and departments--such as the US Geological Survey, the Bureau of

Land Management, and Alaska Volcano Observatory--to remote areas. Such work is also tied to the oil and gas industry, since agencies and researchers need access to areas such as NPR-A or the 1002 region of ANWR long before projects are operational, under construction, approved for construction, receive permits, or are even in the permitting process. Scientists need to begin their assessments--taking fish counts, conducting hydration studies, providing archaeological assessments, and so on, explains Maynard.

"We started out as a utility-work type of operation and grew into oil and gas. We've been supporting the oil and gas industry since the mid-2000s. We're one of the largest operators in Alaska supporting the oil and gas industry," he says.

With an aggressive growth plan,

Pathfinder looks to add two to three aircraft to its fleet of sixteen (fifteen helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft) year-on-year for the foreseeable future. "And, of course, we can get more helicopters as needed by the contract. If a customer establishes the need for more helicopters for their project, we'd go out and get more helicopters," Maynard says. This approach of increased investment by the owner group comes despite an ongoing, statewide recession. But even as oil prices continue to fluctuate, oil and gas companies have found ways to improve their efficiency and develop practices to keep costs, including the costs of helicopter services, down.

The drop in oil prices forced Pathfinder and other helicopter service companies based in the 49th State to further diversify their portfolio.

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