| Columbia Helicopters: Heavy Duty |
| Energy Executive Spotlight | |||
| Written by John Zorabedian | |||
| Friday, 29 February 2008 | |||
 Michael Fahey tells us how a workforce of highly trained pilots and mechanics keeps this heavy-lift transport company growing globally.
It takes a highly skilled pilot to fly a Chinook helicopter carrying up to 25,000 pounds at the end of a fixed 200-foot cable. Of all the licensed helicopter pilots in the world, only a handful are qualified to do this type of “long-line” flying.  Michael Fahey, President CHI works with local community colleges to train mechanics for its Aurora shop, where it refurbishes its own aircraft and performs maintenance work for commercial and military clients. But most of the training has to be done inhouse, starting almost from scratch, said Michael Fahey, Columbia’s president. “When a person comes in here, he is mentored and trained, usually for several years, before he becomes proficient,” he said. This is true as well at CHI’s international subsidiaries and affiliates, which operate in South America, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and Canada. CHI has had success at its long-standing operations in Peru and Ecuador, where local populations make up the vast majority of the workforce, including cargo managing handlers and highly trained mechanics and pilots. In Peru, CHI has a large operation headed by an expatriate American. The office, maintenance, and operations managers are resident Peruvians who work to recruit locals. “We hire significant numbers of local personnel, and we train them to do the load handling at both ends,” Fahey said. “In the field, we have our own flight and maintenance crews, which, wherever possible, we supplement with training of Peruvians to develop the capability to be mechanics and pilots.” In Ecuador, the CHI flight crew is 100% Ecuadorian. “It’s pretty unusual, but we’ve been there a long time, so we’ve been able to train them,” Fahey said. “Most of our maintenance crew are also Ecuadorians, as well as the cargo handling team.” Developing local personnel is a large area of investment, Fahey said, and a necessary part of CHI’s business model, providing a turnkey operation for transportation and logistics needs for some exacting clients in the oil and gas industry. “We have to find people with the right qualifications, which is difficult,” he said. “In Ecuador, that didn’t happen overnight. It happened through a careful selection process and training and testing. It’s a constant effort on our part.” ‘Copter doctors CHI began refurbishing aircraft as a way to maximize efficiencies, but now the company can use its skilled mechanics on site to keep the helicopters operating for more overall hours, providing a competitive advantage. In 2006, CHI purchased the type certificates from Boeing for the Vertol 107-II and the BV234 Chinook helicopters, meaning the company can legally manufacture parts for the aircraft. Columbia is the only commercial operator of these helicopters, although a number of 107-IIs and 234s are operated by various quasi-governmental organizations around the world. In part, due to regulations under the Federal Aviation Administration, purchasing a type certificate was a necessary step for CHI to efficiently operate the Boeing aircraft. In 2005, Boeing and CHI entered negotiations to transfer the type certificates of both classes of helicopters, including the transfer of intellectual property rights and the right to provide quality oversight of parts manufacturing, from vendors. “That’s only allowed for an organization with exceptional quality control, maintenance, and engineering systems and departments,” Fahey said. “We have to figure out who will supervise the correct manufacture of those parts, so it’s a very big responsibility. This will allow us to better control costs, develop improvements to both classes of aircraft, and eventually produce either aircraft depending on market demand.” Fahey said the extensive maintenance operations for all of its aircraft keeps the fleet operating safely for up to 300 hours per month in remote areas. “From a standpoint of being able to operate effectively and get a lot of hours in, we’ve developed an extensive maintenance facility,” Fahey said. “We have a tremendous amount of spares, components and inventory, and shops that overhaul virtually all of the components including turbine engines, drive shaft systems, transmissions, and avionics.” With its primary maintenance operation in Aurora and field shops at sites around the world, CHI has a heavy inventory of parts—with double the investment for inventory as the helicopters themselves. “Because of that, we can offer a customer high operating tempo, and they can get done with one aircraft what might take two. We significantly speed up their rig mobilization and demobilization, which translates into substantial savings,” Fahey said. Customer maintenance is a growing part of the company’s business, providing an independent line of revenue. “We are doing a good deal of maintenance for selective areas of the military or commercial customers with systems or aircraft similar to ours,” Fahey said. “It’s a lucrative business that’s growing quite rapidly.” As CHI has grown into a company with $170 million in annual revenues, Fahey said the most important factor in its expansion of services and geographic footprint has been the skilled workers who keep the heavy duty choppers going. Occasionally that has meant pulling out of countries where the safety of employees could not be guaranteed, such as Indonesia and the Sudan. “Our employees are close friends,” Fahey told The Oregonian. “We never send someone where we wouldn’t go. Many times we’ve rejected contracts when clients couldn’t provide proper security.” |
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American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
