The Pacific Pilotage Authority, based in the Canadian city of Vancouver, placed an advertisement in the Vancouver Sun on Saturday 31st October seeking expressions of interest from operators interested in providing “helicopter hoisting services for marine pilot transfers”.  The location was given as the “British Columbai Southern Coastal Region”.

Interested parties can request an RFP (Request for Proposal) by contacting the PPA at marineops@ppa.gc.ca on or before Friday 6th November.

Further research on the PPA website found the PPA Summary Corporate Plan 2015-2019 which said “In 2014, we introduced helicopter services into the service mix in Prince Rupert and Cape Beale.  It is expected that helicopter transfers will become a significant portion of Prince Rupert assignments over the next five years.” and later added details showing that this is expected to account for 10% of all Prince Rupert assignments in 2015 and they expect it to progressively increase to 75% by 2019.  It would appear that this was an optimistic timeline and the recent advert is the initial effort at dipping their toes in the water.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com