What it costs to order a helicopter and how soon one can be there

The question «what does it cost to order a helicopter» splits into three. What an hour costs, how many hours get counted beyond your own flight, and whether the machine makes it in time. As far as I know, a helicopter flight hour on the market runs from 100 to 350 thousand roubles. Everything else is decided by two points on the map: where the helicopter is standing now, and where it will put down at your end.

Here is the whole ordering sequence — when the clock starts, what has to come from the customer, and the moment the figure stops moving.

The type is chosen by the people and by the landing spot

Both are looked at together. The landing area is measured against the main rotor diameter: the working guide is clear space of at least two diameters.

Rates are as far as I know; the dimensions come from the type catalogue. Forty-three metres of clear ground around the touchdown point is something a country plot rarely offers. The request for an Mi-8 to the house then turns into a landing at the nearest helipad and a car transfer. Settle that on the day you order; the day of the flight is too late to change the scheme.

The Eurocopter EC130 sits between those two rows: six passengers and, as far as I know, around 300,000 roubles per flight hour.

The cost of an Mi-8 hour reached some 250,000 roubles in 2024, as far as I know, with everything included and still before the operator's margin, so the charter rate for it runs higher. What goes into the hour itself — fuel, the engine overhaul reserve, scheduled checks, crew, insurance — I covered in the article on the cost of a flight hour.

How soon the machine actually lifts

The clock does not start with a phone call. It starts when the operator has your route, your timing and your headcount, has answered with a price, and you have confirmed it.

The minimum filing time for a flight plan is 30 minutes. That figure misleads people: the half hour covers one procedure out of several, and it starts running once the crew is assigned, the machine is ready and the route has been worked out. In business aviation an urgent flight inside Russia is put up, as far as I know, within four hours, and that is a fair guide for a helicopter order from base.

A day of margin is needed wherever the route may have to be corrected. A plan is filed for a specific time and a specific track, any change means a fresh approval, and on the Moscow side some zones are closed outright.

Thirty-minute readiness in summer belongs to the duty rescue units. A commercial order has no such standing duty behind it, and the promise «we will lift any minute» is worth testing with a question: where exactly is the machine right now and who is on the crew.

What is needed from the customer

An operator prices a flight off six lines of input. Until they exist, any figure named stays a conversation.

Departure and arrival points. A helipad needs only its name; a private plot needs coordinates and photographs from four sides — the approaches show up only there.

Departure time and the time you need to be back. The second one produces the ground wait, and that is a separate line on the invoice with its own rate.

Headcount and baggage weight. The design allowance per passenger is 90 kilograms. Anything heavier than that, and anything going into the hold, affects the fuel load and the choice of type.

The date. It moves the price by itself: in season a popular destination runs dearer than a business leg of the same length.

Who decides on the day. One person with a phone, answerable for a shifted departure and for reshuffled points. Approval through three intermediaries eats more time than any procedure.

The landing spot at the far end, if it is yours. It gets looked at before the flight is confirmed. Slope, approaches, wires and surface decide more than the size of the area, and a survey sometimes ends in a refusal.

I ask for photographs of the plot before I start talking about price. I once certified a helicopter landing site on a client's order — someone else's facility, a contractor's job — and ever since I look at the obstacles around an area before its size. The detailed account of what gets checked on a plot is in the piece on helicopter charter in Moscow.

When the price stops moving

The first four lines close at quotation and stop moving once the flight is confirmed. The site survey sits between them: it is done before confirmation. The last two stay alive until the flight is over. Ask for the offer to be laid out exactly this way: an all-in figure is assembled differently by different operators — with one, positioning sits inside the rate; with another, it is billed on top.

How this works on our side

The company manages ten aircraft, five of them helicopters. We fly the Mi-8AMT and the Eurocopter EC130 T2. Maintenance of the fleet we handed to the airline Barguzin, which holds an FAP-285 certificate: keeping our own certificate for two machines makes no sense. Checks on our machines are carried out by an organisation licensed on these types, with bases in Moscow and Ulan-Ude and mobile teams.

We price a request and answer within the working day. A round-the-clock duty desk is something I do not promise — it is separate money inside the hourly rate, and a client who flies a few times a year has no use for it.

Send the route, the date and the headcount through the quotation form on the site: those three lines already show the order of the figure, and the rest is settled in correspondence.

Frequently asked questions

The flight was confirmed and then the captain refused to go. Is that allowed?

It is, and it is right. A captain cancels a flight for a defect outside the minimum equipment list and for weather below the minima — the minimum of the machine, of the captain and of the landing spot. The decision is his and it is not up for discussion. One practical conclusion for the customer: ask about a replacement machine before you sign, and find out in advance what happens to the money in a cancellation of that kind.

I need several points in one day — how is that ordered?

As one flight with intermediate landings, and it is counted as a whole, ground time between them included. Each point goes through its own approval, so the operator needs the full list in advance. Fuel is looked at separately: not every landing spot has a bowser, the emergency reserve is mandatory and written into the flight manual, so a chain of short legs sometimes unwinds through a refuelling stop off the route. The order of the points on such a day is set by the operator.

I am not in Moscow. Order from a capital operator or look for a local one?

Start with the question of where the nearest suitable machine stands, and put it to both. A capital operator will deliver a helicopter anywhere, only the positioning enters your invoice both ways, and on a long leg a crew night stop is added to it. A local operator wins on dispatch and loses on choice of types: the region may simply not have a machine of the capacity or the rating you need. Compare offers broken out line by line and the difference shows up at once.

Alexander Filimonov — business aviation: charter, sourcing and entry of aircraft into service.