Helicol Case Study

Helicol SAS (Helicopeteros Nacionales de Colombia) is the first helicopter company in South America. It was founded in 1955 and is primarily focused on servicing the Oil and Gas industry.

ReturnPool approached Helicol in the middle of 2011; after making a process evaluation we found that the flight logs, which is a document that registers all details of a flight, were written manually on paper. Flights to remote locations are a common occurrence for this operation and getting flight logs to the company headquarters was a process that was time consuming and expensive. When flight logs were finally delivered at the main office, a transcription had to be made into their operations system, this made the process fragile and vulnerable to human error.

Flight logs are the operational heart of a helicopter company. Controlling the number of hours each crewmember has flown is a legal responsibility the company has towards the aircraft regulation authority. The statistics department is in charge of generating multiple reports to the management staff.

After reviewing the process we offered a solution called “Flight Tracker” which runs on an IPad using a 3G connection allowing them to transmit data from remote locations. Logs are now transmitted a soon as they are completed and pushed to all the relevant stakeholders. Additionally when calculations are required in the logs they are handled by the application and not the user also ensuring that mandatory data is not left out. Signatures of pilots and customers are also captured and the use of a PIN (Personal Identification Number) ensures access is secured.

The Flight Tracker solution also supports automated reporting thus replacing numerous manual reports created by the statistics department. All documentation is available via a web portal, where they can be reviewed 24 x 7. Management reports are also available and sent by email where needed.

ReturnPool have been running this solution for several years, supporting the operation of more than 15 aircraft. The prime focus is on further reducing the use of paper in the other operational areas of Helicol, to further streamline the operation and reduce costs.