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Capt. Puneet Bakshi, a retired Indian Air force pilot and veteran of Kargil War 1999 is the man behind entrepreneurial venture – GoChoppers in 2016.
Capt. Puneet Bakshi is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and has flown jets, with rockets, bombs, missiles, front guns, barrel rolls, loops etc., and helicopters for more than 5,000 hours. He has flown Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi among other VIPs.
He claims to have saved 832 lives over three days during the Kedarnath disaster relief operations in 2013.
Civil aviation rules comprise very tough parameters for even qualifying to apply for an aviation company, including a mandatory Rs 2 crore capital in the company.
Although they got loans approved by two banks, the banks wanted an equivalent amount as security in terms of assets. So Capt. Bakshi raised the capital in debt and equity funding.
Bakshi recollects, “It took two years to qualify for applying for the Air Operators Permit, and in April 2014 we did it. Next step was to arrange Rs 40 crore to procure two helicopters, to begin with.”
GoChoppers caters to all of the customers’ needs including hotels, cabs, guides, and lunches to surprise gifts and personalized souvenirs etc.
GoChoppers also works with the governments of Gujarat, Uttaranchal, J&K, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand on projects such as heli-skiing, firefighting purposes etc.
GoChoppers has three different operations, with three different pricing mechanisms:
1. Air Charter Services for domestic and foreign clients for any destination within the country which is billed per hour).
2. Domestic help-tourism: GoChoppers™ has been certified as a heli-tour provided by the Ministry of Tourism, and is a part now of the Incredible India Campaign. They have serviced more than 15000 – resident and non-resident Indian -pilgrims in 2017.
3. Exotic luxury heli-tours: Essentially targeting overseas clients, GoChoppers provides packages with services including helicopter/fixed wing commute and hospitality solutions to popular as well as off the beaten path destinations.
Amongst other notable celebrities that flew very recently with them include Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar and acclaimed Indian actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
India is currently the ninth largest aviation market in the world. Annually growing at almost 20 percent, it is expected to be the third biggest in the world by 2025.
According to Capt. Bakshi, the next big resurgence in the helicopter industry will be from heli-taxi in congested metro cities, powerline maintenance services, air ambulance, mineral survey, firefighting, search-and-rescue services, and wildlife monitoring.
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