HI Uplift: GDHF on the opportunities of ‘tumultuous change’

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by Mike Stones

3 July 2025

GDHF CEO Michael York hailed the opportunities he sees ahead.

“If you haven’t been asleep for the past four months, you’ll have noticed the world has changed and that change has been tumultuous.” Painting a picture of the re-invigorated helicopter industry at our London 2025 conference was Michael York, CEO of lessor GD Helicopter Finance (GDHF). But more progress is needed on key topics such as offshore oil and gas rates and contract terms, plus the pressing need to replenish ageing fleets in an increasingly uncertain world.

“We’ve heard about boring and stable markets at this conference and that’s good,” York told the audience last month. “Those who remember the bad days, will know they were bad for a long time.” The oil shock starting in fourth-quarter 2014 and “irrational exuberance” in the market all took their toll over five to six long years.

“Now, the industry is in good shape,” said York. “We’ve seen flying hours up, fleets are fully utilised and OEM orders are rising – but in a very calm way. We are seeing operators and OEMs making money, MROs [maintenance, repair and overhaul businesses] making money and it’s hard to get order book slots (and helicopter parts). We’ve seen most of the industry making money and even seen end users ordering aircraft.”

‘End user rates going up’

Activity over at least the past three years has been “robust” and capacity is tight. “Operator fleets are now fully utilised and lessor fleets are also fully utilised,” he said. “Commensurate with that situation, in line with simple supply and demand forces, we’ve seen end user rates going up for helicopter services, and that’s great.”

York chose the G-word because: “Essentially, the money that end users pay operators for services ripples through the whole value chain for the industry. MROs, financiers, operators, OEMs, even brokers. Everyone has to make money, and the industry value chain makes decent money when end user rates have a fair margin.”

Despite encouraging trading conditions, York detected “more headroom” for improvement in some areas. For example, while nominal rates for end user helicopter services in offshore markets have grown over the last few years and are now about where they were in 2014, in many jurisdictions rates are still quite low. “Inflation adjusted, we’re still well below where rates were during the previous market peak in 2014. So, we think there’s more to go [on improving rates],” he added.

‘Hideous termination for convenience’

Operators’ terms and conditions are also improving with the “hideous termination for convenience” contract term becoming less common. Overall, the industry is seeing a more operator-friendly contracting structure, he said.

But the industry is operating in an age of increasing economic uncertainty and geopolitical risk, he said. Amid the hot wars and tariff wars, the industry is bearing a lot of geo-strategic risk, as it witnessed a re-ordering of macro-economic forces and rules that have been in place for decades.

Borrowing a term from his time as a F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilot and Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk captain for the Australian military, York said: “We live in a VUCA [volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity] world.” VUCA has become embedded in the modern world and that requires leadership and vision to maximise the opportunities and mitigate the challenges.

A key factor shaping the market is the growing need to replenish ageing fleets after the “sustained underinvestment between 2015 and 2020” in the helicopter industry, said York. Particularly in the offshore space for heavies, super mediums and even mediums. “No one wants to see what we saw in 2012, 2013 and 2014, which was really over exuberance,” he added. “We had private equity piling in. We had very frothy deals. We had everyone ordering. We saw a lot of excitement.”

‘That risk has bitten us’

There are many questions to answer, he continued. Not least, will OEMs still be willing and able to support legacy products? (“That risk has bitten us in the past few years. Is that going to continue?”).

Replacement helicopters are welcome because every new generation of helicopter technology brings a step change in safety and efficiency, he said. But the scale of resupply needed, after years of under investment, is daunting.

“If you look across the heavy and medium space, we think 10 to 15 heavies need to be replaced with super mediums annually. Across various industries in the medium space, that figure is at least 30 to 50 mediums need replacing annually. That’s the market need,” said York.

For heavy helicopters, some will reach the end of their 30,000-hour end-of-life limit, some will be parted out and some will be deployed on different missions, perhaps serving longer than 20 years. Set against that, the GDHF CEO thought all the OEMs are struggling with supply chain support due to the rapid ramp up in helicopter flying hours post Covid.

‘Pick-up truck of the industry’

Praising the Sikorsky S-92 as “the long-time reliable pick-up truck of the industry”, which accounts for the vast majority of the long-range offshore fleet, York asked: “Is it being supported well enough? Is the transition to super mediums going to occur faster than the S-92 mechanical retirement age out would suggest?” End users and operators are now answering those questions and making those decisions independently and collectively, he added.

Despite all the uncertainties of the new “VUCA world”, York – a self-confessed “pathological optimist” – remains convinced of the need for new helicopters – particularly in the critical mission sector. “We see an unmet need for replacement new technology metal in mission critical spaces. GDHF are helping to meet some of that need.” While acknowledging GDHF was a small part of the leasing industry, York pledged to be very disciplined about pricing. “There are a lot of lessons about trying to buy market share and so we’re very disciplined. But we are very responsive to market needs,” he said.

Earlier during conference week, GDHF expanded its Airbus H175 super medium order book, firming up 10 H175 orders that were previously options. Within its first year of operation (since its launch in April 2024), the lessor built a lease portfolio of about €200m ($236.2m) and delivered four factory-new super mediums in the first 12 months.

“You can blah, blah, blah in the bar,” said York. “But going out and putting capital down and signing contracts and delivering helicopters to customers is what it’s about.”

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