The London Heliport expects to have a busy summer
The London Heliport has a number of big events to prepare for over the next few months.
The London Heliport.
The London Heliport has a number of big events to prepare for over the next few months, including the Santander British Grand Prix, the Ryder Cup and the Farnborough International Airshow.
The heliport has recently had to operate helicopters to Royal Ascot and the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
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All these events are contributing to what is set to be a record-breaking summer for the capital’s London Heliport. Overall, bookings at the city’s only licensed heliport are 50 per cent up since the start of calendar year 2014.
The heliport was extra busy on Gold Cup Day at Royal Ascot with 24 extra movements on that day along.
Both Castle Air and Starspeed reported extra helicopter operations over Royal Ascot as well. Starspeed’s Sikorsky S-92 16 seat helicopter is now a regular visitor to the heliport.
Also busy for the period is Capital Air Services, who offer a fully tailor-made and flexible helicopter charter service with helicopters positioned out of their London Oxford Airport base. Capital will take delivery of Europe’s first new Sikorsky S-76D model and the aircraft will be available for charter from August.
Capital reports good take up for Royal Ascot, The British Grand Prix at Silverstone from 3-6 July and is already very busy for the Farnborough Airshow and the Ryder Cup in September. Owing to an increase in its management and charter activities, Capital has also recently recruited several more pilots.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed is increasingly popular for helicopters
Simon Hutchins, general manager of London Heliport, says: “The Goodwood Festival of Speed is shaping up to be an increasingly social occasion for corporate helicopter use. We have taken a concentrated number of bookings from one large group which is flying out 60 guests, using 10 helicopters on the Saturday and we have healthy bookings on the Friday and Sunday too.”
“Bookings for Farnborough Air Show, where busy executives can beat the M3 travel in just 20 minutes, is filling up well too with 26 bookings already logged for the first Monday of the show – July 14th. We tend to get extremely busy for the Farnborough Air Show and we advise corporates to book early in order to avoid disappointment,” Hutchins adds.
Corporate Jet Investor spoke to Simon Hutchins in August last year. You can watch the video footage below:
https://vimeo.com/71969892
It takes less than 35 minutes to fly from The London Heliport, located at Battersea, just south of Chelsea Harbour to Goodwood; 15 minutes to Ascot in Berkshire and 35 minutes to reach Silverstone.
Meanwhile, the management of The London Heliport is in dialogue with several interested parties about taking over the sponsorship and naming of one of London’s most iconic sites, now that Barclays sponsorship has expired.
