Why are super-rich Indians buying helicopters and why they are different from their counterparts in West

Steve Estill, who has spent the last decade selling helicopters, experienced first hand this "enormous" potential in the Indian market about four years ago. Estill, vice-president, strategic partnerships at US helicopter maker Sikorsky Aircraft Corp, was stuck in a five-hour traffic snarl en route to his hotel from the Mumbai airport. "I prayed for a helicopter to rescue me," he recalls.
No helicopter emerged on the horizon for Estill, but his company has had better luck. Sikorsky has sold six helicopters to "very rich" Indians, as one would expect, since Estill's ordeal. It is in talks with five state governments and corporate houses to sell more.
"We have been successful in a small way selling the S-76s [the VIP model can carry up to eight people] in India," says Estill. "But this is an exciting and dynamic marketplace," he says.
Sikorsky's antenna in India has been turned to its mainstay military market - one of its helicopters participated in the ill-fated attempt to capture a Somali warlord in 1993 in what became known as Black Hawk Down - and it is a late bloomer in the Indian civil market. But sales of rivals have been humming in India.
AgustaWestland of Italy has sold 50 civil copters in India this past six years. Market leader Bell Helicopter of the US has found 104 buyers since 1996 while Eurocopter Group, a Franco-German-Spanish venture, is said to have around 30 clients in India.
04/03/12 Binoy Prabhakar/Economic Times

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2012