The Direct approach


For almost 20 years, Direct Helicopter International has specialized in shipping helicopters to new owners around the world. It’s a hyper-specialized niche, but one that has delivered over 2,500 aircraft to new owners.

If you’ve ever looked into shipping a helicopter, odds are you’ve heard of Dave Urban and Direct Helicopter International. Based in the small Ontario resort town of Port Dover on Lake Erie, Direct Helicopter occupies a very unique niche in focusing, specifically, on shipping helicopters. But that laser focus has allowed it to become a true specialist with a comprehensive knowledge of anything and everything needed to get a helicopter from one continent to another.

Direct Helicopter can take care of every aspect of shipping, from hangar to hangar.

It’s more than a full-time job for Urban; it’s a genuine passion. He begins work at 4 a.m. every day, and works 17-hour days, seven days a week.

“The phone just rings and rings, it just never stops,” said Urban. “I love what I do. I love putting deals together for people that don’t really know how to do it.”

Urban’s connection to the helicopter shipping business began with a degree in international trade, followed by a job at Toronto Pearson airport, where he worked for a major European shipping company. “My job was shipping big things by [Boeing] 747,” he said. “I liked the harder stuff, where you had to ship a tractor or a Zamboni by airfreight.”

He eventually became airframe manager at another shipping company, where he shipped his first helicopter in 1998: an Airbus AS350 B2. The customer that provided that aircraft is still one of his clients today. “Over time, I realized I could make more money and satisfy more clients [by focusing on] this kind of thing,” he said.

After almost 20 years in business, Direct Helicopter has shipped more than 2,500 helicopters around the world.

He went out on his own and established Direct Helicopter in 2003. “A lot of 
people told me  — including people close to me — ‘You’re crazy for focusing on one commodity,’ ” said Urban. “But the thing about it is it was hard — that’s why I liked it.”

A Different Offering

A key part of Direct Helicopter’s appeal is its turnkey and customizable hangar-to-hangar service. Depending on a customer’s requirements, this can include disassembly, reassembly and return to service of the aircraft through its team of in-house certified maintenance engineers, who provide their services around the globe.

“Before Covid, the engineering work was 20 percent of my revenue,” said Urban. “We had a solid five years where we had 70/80 aircraft a year that we would disassemble, reassemble, and return them to service. There were times where some of my engineers were literally on the road for three months on six different continents.”

A Sikorsky S-76 is custom-wrapped and ready for its international flight.

The company can also provide all shipping gear (including a custom-built crate, if required), load plans for any type of helicopter, and complete all country-specific exportation and importation documents. It can take care of all customs and local tax procedures and payments, and will even become the importer of record.

A place on intercontinental flights on a Boeing 747 is guaranteed through Direct Helicopter’s partner Senator International, which provides an air bridge through its hub in Frankfurt to connect North America to Europe, Africa and Asia.

“Reputation is key: When I give a price, that’s the price. I will not come back to you and say, ‘The trucking world is crazy, the driver wants more money, it’s out of my control, we have to charge you more.’ I never do that.”

If a customer needs maintenance staff or even pilots to complete ferry flights, Direct Helicopter can provide that, too.

This service is offered for one firm quoted price.

“We’re pretty much the only company that gives that turnkey quote that gives you everything, so you don’t need to call anybody else,” said Urban. “You don’t need to worry about a customs broker or import or export of record. We become the actual importer of record on the aircraft — and that’s unheard of in the shipping business.”

Direct Helicopter even offers its own insurance policy — an “A” clause, all-risk policy with a $5,000 deductible. 

“We’re not just giving clients a price and saying, ‘Call us when it’s ready,’ ” said Urban. “We’re really helping on the consulting side of things: what’s the best way to buy and ship this helicopter? What are all the ramifications? And that’s what eats up the hours of the day. . . . It’s a lot of hours on the phone explaining deals, and showing clients exactly how it’s going to work.”

The most satisfying aspect of his job, he says, is when he is able to be the key component in allowing a deal to happen.

“It’s the art of the deal, where you had a guy in Australia trying to sell his helicopter to a guy in Norway, for example,” he said. “The one guy wants to sell it, the other guy wants to buy it, but they just can’t get together on price. What’s the big area in that deal that you can get the price down? Shipping. I want these guys to sell their machines.”

While Direct Helicopter does service with the major airframe manufacturers (and has seen major growth with Bell in Mirabel, Quebec, over the last year), Urban says he focuses on brokers and private deals.

“I pivoted to the private market in ’07/’08 and really built my name there, so that every broker, every person who tried to buy and sell a helicopter knew who I was,” he said. “We do meet new clients every day — but I know about 50 percent of the market today.”

Most of the company’s business is from word-of-mouth, he added. “Reputation is key: When I give a price, that’s the price. I will not come back to you and say, ‘The trucking world is crazy, the driver wants more money, it’s out of my control, we have to charge you more.’ I never do that.”

International Growth

Urban says it took about 10 years to perfect his business model. He has a core group of six people on his admin team, with a further 50 to 60 people working for him around the world on any given day. “The pay structure and incentives are very different with me,” he said. “Everybody who works for me is on a contract for a profit share. That’s why I can retain people very well, because they make more money with me. . . . And that’s why I can keep the prices low for the clients, as we don’t have a corporate structure where money is just getting sucked out constantly. The money is going into people.”

Urban is the heartbeat of Direct Helicopter, and he is the only person in the company who decides the numbers for a quote.

“I have to look at every single deal: what the market will accept, what I think my competition may or may not quote, and I do the numbers,” he said. “There’s not too many lanes in the world where I don’t know the current market rates. And then of course we fly the 747, and I know exactly how much money we need to make on that. But nobody can touch my pricing on America to Europe.”

Typically, the company aims to ship an average of 20 aircraft a month, but the last quarter has been particularly busy. The normal Christmas rush wasn’t cleared until mid-January. “The reason it took so long was just due to volume,” said Urban. “I’ve never seen anything like it: October, November, December — I think we did about 80 machines.”

Rather than being the result of any industry trend — pent up demand from various Covid lockdowns, for example — Urban believes the increase in business is largely just part of Direct Helicopter’s natural growth.

Most of the company’s business is through word-of-mouth referrals, helping expand its reach around the world.

“Our name is getting out there so much more internationally,” he said. “We’re not just doing deals here in America; we’re busy everywhere.” As an example, the company shipped 12 aircraft from England in December alone. “It was a really big month for us, and we still have a lot of English deals that we’re just halfway through now, and I’ve got a whole new set of deals coming up for February for England. It’s really busy over there.”

This international business is a result of having carefully built a trusted network of employees over the years, said Urban, with experienced managers in place in London, England; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Sau Paulo, Brazil; and Dallas, Texas.

The latter is the site of the company’s AOG desk, which provides round the clock service for spare parts shipping. 

In terms of some of the more interesting moves that he’s been requested to make, Urban says he particularly enjoys the challenge of providing a full turnkey service — including pilots and maintenance staff — to one-off humanitarian projects in some of the most inaccessible regions of the world.

“Or, the work where no shipping company can perform the task, but I’m able to use or divert our own 747 to make it happen,” he said. “We’ve done that quite a bit this year.”

Given his role, Urban has quite a unique perspective on global helicopter trends. But one thing, he says, always remains the same: “It doesn’t matter what kind of helicopter it is, it always sells,” he said. 

Urban and his engineering team celebrate the safe arrival of a Bell 430

However, he has noted a major consolidation among the broker market. “The trend we’re seeing is actually a smarter deal,” he said. “I used to use the analogy that on any given day, there are 100 people around the world working on buying or selling a helicopter. Now, I think we’re in the range of 70 to 80 — but those people are busier, and the world has got smaller. You have some really smart people out there that know how to buy and sell helicopters.”

Helping make a deal happen keeps Urban happy. “I’m here to help our industry — I want to help it to survive,” he said. “There are enough problems with so many rampant cost increases that the one thing I can do at least is make my shipping price a little lower, just to help everybody out a little bit. I’ll work on volume.” 

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