Commercial and leisure helicopter travel from downtown has become a lot easier with the government's agreement to allow Heliservices to ferry passengers from the temporary Government Flying Service facility in Causeway Bay.
Yesterday's launch of the helicopter service was almost six years in the making following the closure of a heliport near Fenwick Pier at the end of 2003 to make way for the Central-Wan Chai harbour reclamation.
Heliservices, part of the Hong Kong Aviation Group owned by the Kadoorie Group, has a twin-engine Eurocopter AS355N Squirrel available for hire at HK$20,000 an hour. It seats up to five passengers with light luggage. A special promotion with The Peninsula hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, which has rooftop helicopter facilities, offers a cross-harbour flight and high tea at HK$1,080 per head.
Heliservices flies within Hong Kong but is keen to operate non-scheduled cross-border flights to the Pearl River Delta pending Beijing's approval, Hong Kong Aviation chief executive Chris Buchholz said.
'Although we can't fly cross-border flights now, we are trying to get the infrastructure ready so that when Beijing approves it, we can take advantage of it,' he said. 'I believe there will be a lot of demand for such services, especially from people wanting to fly direct to factories in the Pearl River Delta.'
Heliservices pays the government a fixed monthly rent and a fee every time its helicopter lands at the temporary facility, although the Government Flying Service always has landing priority. Mr Buchholz declined to disclose the fees but said the agreement was valid until permanent heliport facilities were built at the northeastern corner of the Convention and Exhibition Centre site in Wan Chai, hopefully by 2011.