Pawan Hans Limited (PHL) is a transport service operated as a central public sector undertaking based at Noida in Delhi NCR, India. It is a Mini Ratna-I category PSU under the ownership of Ministry of Civil Aviation of the Government of India. It has cumulatively flown more than 1 million hours and has had 2.5 million landings on its fleet since its formation. The registered office is located in New Delhi. The corporate headquarter is located at Sector-1 in Noida with regional office at New Delhi, Mumbai and Guwahati. The operations are based at the Juhu Aerodrome in Vile Parle (West), Mumbai. It is the country's one and only government-owned-helicopter service provider with the objective of providing helicopter support services to the oil sector for its off-shore exploration operations, services in remote areas and charter services for promotion of tourism.

History

Pawan Hans Limited (PHL) was incorporated on 15 October 1985 as the Helicopter Corporation of India (HCI). It commenced its operations on 1 November 1985 with 2 British Westland helicopters and later acquired 21 more helicopters. Union government had 78.5% ownership and 21.5% with ONGC. The name was changed to Pawan Hans Ltd in August 1986. In 1986/87, PHL started operating in Andaman and Nicobar islands and Lakshadweep islands. During 1987, the technical and structural problem, which plagued the PHL from the beginning, started increasing and some 9 Westland and 7 Dauphins were grounded. Indian Air Force gave a loan of helicopters to Phl. In 1988/89, multiple crashes got PHL into serious troubles and forced PHL to withdraw all helicopter services except ONGC. However PHL still managed to deliver 3 Helicopter Mail Service though in late 1988 HMS was also withdrawn. In 1997, Pawan Hans Helicopter Ltd and Pawan Hans Pilots' Guild reached a settlement over several worker conditions. In 2001, A.P.J. Kalam who at that time was Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India barely escaped when the rotor of a helicopter carrying him broke down, bringing down the chopper belonging to PHL. In July 2002, PHL was awarded Quality Summit International Award in the Gold Category in New York for its excellence, quality and corporate achievement by Business Initiative Directions (BID), Spain. On 16 May 2003, PHL started its Kedarnath operations with five-seater Bell-407 helicopter. On 26 August 2004, PHL signed a MOU with Uttaranchal government's Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Ltd to promote tourism in state. In 2007, PHL started a 10 person project to upgrade skills of their aeronautical engineer so to make them pilots as to fight shortage of pilots. On 15 Feb 2008, PHL and Indian Air Force signed Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU enabled IAF helicopter pilots which were nearing the retirement age to be inducted into PHL. In 2008, PHI gave Dauphin N-3 helicopters to state anti-naxal operation cell as to counter Maoist insurgency in Vidarbha District. In 2010, ONGC has upped its stake to 49%, a move that will saw the equity base of PHL being enhanced to ₹245 crores from the existing ₹113 crores. On 27 December 2010, seaplane services were operationalized in Andaman and Nicobar Islands as per MOU signed between Andaman and Nicobar Administration and PHL. The service began with an eight-seater Cessna 208A Amphibian seaplane named Jal Hans will be used by PHHL to ferry tourists between Port Blair and Havelock Island in the presence of Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. This was the first introduction of seaplanes in India. On 29 April 2011, a Pawan Hans AS350 B-3 helicopter carrying Dorjee Khandu, the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, and four other people went missing. It was traced four days later near Lobthang. All 5 people were found dead. After this incident Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh suspended PHI services. As of January 2017, the partially government owned helicopter service provider had a net worth of ₹3,701.5 crores and paid-up equity share capital was ₹245.61 crores. Pawan Hans is an "Approved Maintenance Centre of Eurocopter" and also the first ISO 9001: 2000 certified aviation company in India. On 12 January 2017, the Government of India approved the privatization of Pawan Hans. In July 2020, first helicopter service by PHL in Uttarakhand started operating under UDAN-RCS scheme. On 3 July 2023, the department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) scrapped the strategic disinvestment after it disqualified the successful bidder Star 9 Mobility Pvt Ltd, a consortium of three companies Maharaja Aviation Pvt, Big Charter Pvt, led by Almas Global Opportunity Fund. The consortium had placed a winning bid of ₹211.14 crore in 2021.

Services

PHL provides helicopter services to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to its off-shore locations as well as NTPC, GAIL, GSPC and Oil India. This government-owned-helicopter service provider is often engaged in providing services to various state governments in India, particularly in North-east India, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Tripura, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh. PHL also gives services to Ministry of Home Affairs. It provides 4 Dauphin helicopters to Andaman and Nicobar Islands for inter-island transportation, and provides 2 Dauphin helicopters to Lakshadweep Administration for ferrying people from Islands to Cochin International Airport and for evacuation of patients to Kavaratti/Aggati and mainland. These helicopters are considered as the backbone of Lakshadweep and Minicoy Islands. PHL runs helicopter services from Phata to the Kedarnath Temple during yatra seasons i.e., May-June and September-October every year. And also provides service for Amarnath Temple from Rudraprayag. It also runs Vaishno Devi helicopter service. PHL has emerged as Asia's one of the largest helicopter operators with a own operational fleet of 43 helicopters. Pawan Hans offers helicopter services for:

Destinations

Pawan Hans flies to various points in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh (U.T.) Tripura, Sikkim, Nagaland, Odisha, West Bengal, and also to MHA Guwahati in Assam. While Meghalaya state is suspended, it resumed its service on 26 July 2012. Mukul Sangma, the chief minister of Meghalaya, took a personal ride in the helicopter to check if it is resumable or not. Uttrakhand

Fleet

The Pawan Hans fleet of 42 helicopters as of April 2021 which includes: It also operates & maintains HAL Dhruv helicopters belonging to Hindustan Aeronautics Rohini helicopter owned by PHL, located north west of New Delhi, is first of its kind in country.

Rent

Jal Hans

Pawan Hans jointly owns Jal Hans, India's first amphibious aircraft service with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration.

Accidents and incidents

In 2011, PHHLs operations in the North Eastern States of India came under serious public criticism due to safety issues. After the crash that killed the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Dorjee Khandu and five others, it operations in the North East region were suspended and DGCA was asked to conduct safety audit of the company. The operations were resumed in January 2013. But yet another accident took place on 4 August 2015 killing 3 people on board, including an IAS officer.