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380 HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

Chapter 1
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

 1. The primary role of the scheduled helicopter carriers at the present time is to provide expedited service on the metropolitan area segment of intercity and international air passenger trips. The need for expedited service arises from the increased ground transportation times required to reach the airport from business or residential areas or to travel between airports. Ground transportation times have increased in the nation's large metropolitan areas as a result of severe surface traffic congestion and from factors, including the growth of urban population and of air travel, which have served to push the airport farther from the city. The use of the helicopter in airport transportation has brought the speed of air travel to that segment of the passenger journey which otherwise would not have benefited from advances in transportation technology. (Chapter III, page III-45.)

 2. Present scheduled helicopter service constitutes a part of our national air transportation system rather than a part of local transportation systems. As such, the direct benefits of helicopter service are available to the bulk of the air travel market as a whole, not just to residents of the large metropolitan areas now served. Helicopter service is used almost exclusively by passengers making connections to regular airline flights. Roughly half of the passengers on the present helicopter airlines live in areas outside those where helicopter service is now provided. Since the cities having such service are focal points for national air travel, their airports serve passengers from nearly every city in the country which has air service; these airports are major components in the nation's air transportation system, therefore. (Chapter III, page III-28.)

 3. The benefits of helicopter service in expediting airport transportation have been demonstrated clearly by the operations of the present carriers. As in the case of other forms of transportation, however, the assistance of the Federal government in the form of subsidy has been required is their experimental and developmental stages. From the beginning of the mail-carriage experiment in 1947 through the present, subsidy payments have totaled approximately $48 million. (Chapter III, pages III-3, III-26.)

 4. At the same time that helicopters were being introduced in civil aviation, the use of vertical-lift aircraft in military missions was expanding. The concurrence of these developmental programs—civil and military—resulted in a flow of benefits to the military from the high-utilization test-bed operations of the commercial carriers. It appears that the past and future benefits to the military services will more than off-set the costs to the Federal government of introducing a new and advanced phase of commercial aviation and of developing it to the point of economic self-sufficiency. (Chapter III, page III-31.)

 5. As is true in air transport, the subsidy requirements of the helicopter carriers have been related closely to the economic characteristics of their flight equipment. Until the recent introduction of twin-turbine helicopters, breakeven requirements remained well above 100 per cent of aircraft capacity. The introduction of twin-turbine equipment has already cut unit operating costs in half and unit costs for turbine operators

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