Formed to take its existing corporate jet customers the final mile, SaxonAir’s helicopter division has used its heritage to take the corporate sector in new directions.

The epicenter of corporate and VIP helicopter operations in the United Kingdom is, unsurprisingly, London. But while its status as a financial powerhouse might make it the perfect environment to operate a helicopter business, its geography does not. Historic issues over noise have left only two heliports anywhere near the city center, with operators left tripping over one another at the small airfields that nestle into the city’s suburbs.

Not SaxonAir. Approximately 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London, this private aviation provider has been headquartered at Norwich airport on England’s east coast since 2007. The company name is a nod to the ancient Saxon people who settled here over 1,500 years ago, and like their tribal namesakes, SaxonAir’s activities take them all over the country and further afield.

Chris Gerskowitch is head of flight operations for SaxonAir’s helicopter division, which sprang from the company’s jet operations in 2014.

“We entered the helicopter market initially with a single-engine turbine Airbus helicopter,” he said. “It was a logical progression to provide the final mile capability, and there was a clear requirement from our client base to do so.”

It didn’t take long for the company’s client base to broaden their needs. Within two years, SaxonAir identified the need for a twin-engine helicopter that could operate in poor weather, and the associated regulatory approvals. With the requirement for an instrument flight rules (IFR) Air Operator Certificate (AOC), came the company’s first complex twin — a Leonardo AW109SP.

“The 109SP was an easy decision,” said Gerskowitch. “The number being operated in the U.K. speaks volumes about its capability in the corporate sector. It’s very fast, very sophisticated and designed to be flown single-pilot, IFR.”

Jordan Smith is the head of operations at SaxonAir’s helicopter division. He explained that the reduced weight of the AW109SP equates to more performance. “Every kilo of fuel makes a difference,” he said. “With single crew and with four passengers the endurance of the 109SP is around 2 hours 45 minutes.”

The company has operated six AW109SPs, as well as three AW119Ke Koalas from the same manufacturer, and an Airbus ACH125. Despite the latter two being single-engine machines, each brings its own advantages.

“The 119 is very fast and capable, and has a bulkhead to provide separation for the passengers, which is unique among singles,” said Gerskowitch. “The 125 is a more immersive experience, because as a passenger you’re right up there with the pilot. They’re both very capable aircraft.”

Despite the H125 being perhaps best known for its utility credentials, SaxonAir reserves all its aircraft solely for flying passengers, and the capability to operate into London is understandably a high priority.

“Much of our business is getting people in and out of London from anywhere in the U.K. and beyond, including Amsterdam and Paris,” said Gerskowitch. “The operation is entirely corporate. All our aircraft have approval to operate into London Heliport Battersea, and are float-fitted.”

Smith said that the H125 added value to the company’s single-engine fleet, without compromising versatility.

“It’s probably the most cost-effective helicopter to operate into London due to the reduced rates and fees,” he explained. “And while it is less expensive it still looks the business.”

SaxonAir’s focus on corporate flying makes it possible to ensure that the aircraft are treated with the care necessary to maintain their interior trim — something about which the company is particularly proud.

“Our 125 has the Farnborough interior, which is a precursor to the Airbus Corporate Helicopters and Aston Martin collaboration,” said Gerskowitch.

Managing connections

All of the SaxonAir fleet is operated privately, or can be flown for charter under the company’s AOC, with business coming directly from clients or through brokers.

As with any similar arrangement, this comes with the complexity of having to keep both the customer and the broker happy, which is particularly important given the luxury nature of the market, where a single customer can account for a large proportion of revenue.

On top of these dynamics is layered a partially single-engine fleet that is limited to visual flight rules (VFR) operations, and the famously uncompliant British weather.

As head of flight operations, this challenge is one for Gerskowitch and his team to solve, but he seems far from daunted.

“We are transparent on price, and on identifying risk,” he explained. “If we think there are going to be risks around weather or aircraft performance, then we will plan for contingency early because the last thing that the client needs is to be let down at the eleventh hour. We’ve always done that, and it’s been greatly appreciated by the clients.”

He is equally ebullient about the considerations required to operate single-engine aircraft for charter. While the twin-engine 109SPs might provide greater flexibility in poor weather, this is more than made up for by the fact that the single-engine machines can open up new markets.

“The singles provide a lower price point, provided that the customer’s requirements do not demand the performance characteristics of a twin,” said Gerskowitch. He was also keen to point out that their characteristics lend them to a different type of luxury air travel.

“They are still sophisticated corporate aircraft and they will do all of the work that we do in the 109, with the caveat that it’s day VFR only. But there’s also an expeditionary air to them, so they are perfect for adventure travel.”
Luxury helicopter travel is very much in-vogue, but this sentiment from SaxonAir is more than simply an appeal to the zeitgeist. The company has run expeditions to Scotland as well as into wilderness territories in Europe, headed up by two former U.K. armed forces pilots with extensive experience not only in operating in these kinds of environments, but also in mitigating the associated risks.

Such expeditions require particular attention to detail, and the specialist training required for it isn’t easy to come by. Gerskowitch explained that even SaxonAir’s routine operations have received similar attention, and their training commitment reflects a desire to put safety above profit.

“Safety takes primacy, it’s really that simple,” he said. “Look at the accident reports from the decade prior to our IFR AOC, most of them had a very big weather component.”

Soon after arriving at the company, he put an out-brief in place to provide a conditions checklist prior to going flying, so that a second set of eyes could look at things and help to reduce any biases or blind-spots in the planning process. It was a process that he was familiar with from his experience flying for the British Army.

“It just seemed like the best way to avoid bad decisions being made,” he said. “It doesn’t affect the time we need to perform the task, it’s just all the things we should be doing anyway.”

Training for the night

One particular focus is the routine, but complex, task of conducting field landings at night. It carries risk that the industry in the U.K. specifically addressed in the 2019 Onshore Helicopter Review.

“We conduct simulator training for the AW109, but we go further with night off-airport supernumerary training,” said Gerskowitch. “You could do a summer season flying very little at night, and then go straight into the the remotest parts of the U.K. on a charter having not flown a night field landing for months.”

SaxonAir seems prepared to spend significant sums of money to ensure that this doesn’t happen, being one of the few in the industry that provides its pilots with specific training to keep them in night flying practice beyond that mandated by the regulator. It also provides infrastructure at its night landing sites to help ensure not only a safe approach and landing can be made, but also that there are trained staff on the ground to ensure safe handling.

All sites used at night have to be surveyed in advance, so the company has set procedures about how those surveys are carried out. It also provides a landing site officer on the ground for real-time weather and passenger handling, as well as lighting of the perimeter and the landing point aid.

“It was never a financial issue,” said Gerskowitch. “We just decided that we weren’t going to do night landing unless we had ownership of it.”
While all of SaxonAir’s clients benefit from the safety and operational enhancements that these arrangements provide, only a few take a close enough interest to really understand the company’s efforts. However, Gerskowitch is quite sure that anybody would be able to appreciate the SaxonAir method.

“We’re not shooting an approach to a set of car headlights in a field; we overlay a heliport onto the remote landing location,” he explained. “But the irony is that the clients are pretty oblivious. If you land at one of our night sites, you land in a lit desert box with perimeter obstructions lit with floodlights. There’s a truck on the ground with someone to receive you. I hope that when the client gets out, they think, ‘Well, this is really swept up.’ ”
While Gerskowitch’s passion for good user experience is evident in his approach to his job, he is quick to credit the company heritage as the factor that enables the company to optimize its client services, and its safety culture.

“We are quite willing to say ‘no,’ and we have built good client relationships as a result of that,” he said. “People appreciate the decisiveness about whether a flight goes ahead or not, and we benefit from having a jet team who can provide alternative solutions, all in-house.”

The range of in-house facilities that SaxonAir has at its Norwich headquarters is indeed impressive. It has its own hangar, part of which is used by the oil-and-gas operators at the airport, and it also operates the handling and associated services at Norwich Airport for all non-scheduled business, private and general aviation aircraft.

Additionally, it holds the contract to provide dedicated ground support to the offshore oil-and-gas and renewables industry at the airport. According to SaxonAir, this accounts for more than 40,000 passengers and 700 tonnes of freight being handled through its facility each year.

It might come as a surprise then, that despite also having its own Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO), SaxonAir doesn’t have its own part 145 maintenance operation, choosing instead to outsource the majority of its maintenance to the U.K. distributor for Leonardo Helicopters.
This is likely another result of the company’s business jet heritage, as is the fact that it does not operate as an Approved Training Organisation (ATO).

Gerskowitch explained that this presented some complexities with the AW119 acquisitions, but the problems were solved through a relationship with another third party, which was looking to set up an ATO.

This deliberate compartmentalization speaks to the confidence that SaxonAir has in its focus solely on corporate aircraft operation. Part of addressing that client set has increasingly involved managing the environmental impact of the operation, so in partnership with global ecology company Gone West, the company has offset the carbon emissions produced by all of its flights since 2019.

A part 145 facility or an ATO would certainly provide some diversification, as they do for many other charter operators. However, this is often a means of growing a charter operation out of an ATO, and that’s a problem that SaxonAir doesn’t have. Its corporate jet background instead affords it not only the ability and the experience to concentrate on solving its clients’ problems, but also to offer both fixed-wing and helicopter solutions through a single point of contact.

“In 2016, when we got the twin-engine IFR AOC, the team that we assembled to deliver that had no historic baggage from the corporate helicopter sector,” explained Gerskowitch. “We just set a new bar in how we chose to operate.”