Original Message

The Industry is currently filled with people in leadership positions, especially the larger "corporate" type organizations, with no idea about the business or how to succeed in operating helicopters. As a result, they devise complicated "solutions" to problems that were resolved years ago, and should never exist today.

It is filled with people making the most bizarre decisions and errors because they lack the hands-on experience and knowledge to understand the capabilities and roles of their helicopters. Meantime, all the guys that can actually make it all function, are either retiring, or leaving for other smaller upcoming operators who are in the process of disrupting the business and may drive some of the larger companies out of business, at least in the manner they function today.

The Leadership issues are further exacerbated by ownership that has even less knowledge about the helicopter business, than those they have appointed to run these businesses. A contemporary management meeting is focused on only one thing, MONEY, and none of the participants can understand why their equipment isn't operating profitably, or in many cases, not operating at all. Within many senior management teams, you will not be able to find a single individual that has spent even one day working (not watching) in the field engaged in their principal operation that generates their revenue.

There are a multitude of disruptors at work, and the path to success is clearly defined for them, as they watch the big operators stumble around trying to generate enough money to make their huge monthly payments to the lenders. The entire landscape will change in the next two years, as they continually reorganize (hides all kinds of management incompetence), sell profitable segments of their business to raise cash, and either merge (more borrowing hides a lot), downsize, or simply get driven out of business.

Incompetence is running wild in this industry.