Disaster rescue and medical airlift also part of services

27 January, 2010 – The department of civil aviation has invited international and domestic companies to submit proposals to operate domestic air services that should cater to a 100,000 tourists by 2012 and also offer disaster rescue and medical evacuation services.

Only one company will be chosen for the first few years given the market size. Services must start by September 30, 2010. “The selected company will be the sole operator for the hybrid service which means both helicopters and fixed wing air services within Bhutan,” said Jamyang Chhophel, senior airworthiness engineer and focal person for the project.

Air operation will initially start with helicopter services and move to fixed winged aircraft when the three new domestic airports are ready. Yongphula in Trashigang is expected to be completed by June 2010, Bathapalathang by December 2010 and Gelephu by mid 2011. Also on offer to the operator will be 60 potential helipad sites across the country.

“The government will provide the infrastructure in terms of a hangar, airfield and storage space but the operators will have to bring in their own planes, pilots, engineers and spare,” said Jamyang. “The number of aircraft and the frequency of operations will be left to the operator depending on the market.”

DCA officials expect that the domestic carrier will select Paro airport, as its main operations base as the airport already has all the facilities like oil storage, equipments and space.

Other potential areas are freight, government and international agencies transport, medical air transport and social and natural disaster programmes. “For disaster and medical transport the planes will offer basic transportation facilities and not specialized ‘helicopter ambulances’ or diver teams since these require another level of training and equipment,” clarified Jamyang.

The domestic air services will be of two types. One is scheduled service with timetables and regular frequency open to the public for booking. The second one is taxi services, which will be aircraft on demand for non-scheduled flights like a special tour for tourists.

The domestic operator will also be allowed to operate single engine aircraft and helicopters with safety standards. As per the existing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy domestic air services can have a 74 percent foreign and 26 percent domestic component. “However, if we receive only foreign proposals then we’ll have to come up with some recommendations,” said Jamyang.

DCA officials said that a Request For Proposal (RFP) was being floated in place of a tender as they did not really know the technical specifications but would have to come to an agreement depending on the broad guidelines of the department and the proposals received.

By Tenzing Lamsang