Helicopter shuttle company Blade Air Mobility has struck deals worth €48mn with members of Monaco’s royal family, Ferrari shareholder John Elkann and others to begin flying passengers between the French Riviera, Monte Carlo and the ski slopes of Courchevel.
The US group, which counts Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood among its largest investors, has agreed to buy the routes and heliports of Monacair, Héli Sécurité and a third unnamed European operator subject to regulatory approvals.
It plans to announce the deals on Thursday, in advance of next weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, for which it is advertising $220-per-seat flights from Nice to Monte Carlo.
Under the agreements, the three companies will retain their fleets but Blade will be their sole customer, extending an asset-light strategy in which the US group has sought to put its brand on the most popular routes served by helicopters before the expected arrival of a new generation of electric vertical aircraft, known as eVOTLs or EVAs.
Blade has contracted with four EVA developers for deliveries starting in 2024, although it has told Wall Street its business model assumes that none will enter service until 2025.
The group has expanded from New York — where it serves the city’s airports and resorts such as the Hamptons — to bases in Vancouver, Canada and India.
“The whole business model behind Blade is to accumulate the best routes, infrastructure and customers in the world who are currently travelling by helicopter . . . and then providing those businesses with a seamless transition for electric vertical aircraft,” said Blade chief executive Rob Wiesenthal.
The investment is also a bet on a revival in high-end business and leisure travel, which collapsed early in the pandemic and now faces questions over what impact western sanctions will have on wealthy Russians’ ability to frequent their usual European haunts.
The operations Blade is buying “overperformed this past quarter beyond expectations” despite the war in Ukraine, Wiesenthal said, pointing to a 30 per cent increase in their revenues from 2019’s pre-pandemic levels.
“While for a specific route such as Courchevel there was a contingent of Russian customers, we’re cautiously optimistic that many of these will return next season,” he added.
The deal will put Blade into business with Pierre and Andrea Casiraghi, nephews of Monaco’s Prince Albert II, who are shareholders of Monacair alongside Elkann, who runs Italy’s Exor.
Monacair runs 50 scheduled flights a day between Nice Airport and Monaco, while Héli Sécurité’s 16 serves St Tropez and the Swiss Alps. One industry member in Europe identified the third company as Cannes-based Azur Hélicoptère, whose investors include Oaktree Capital Management. Blade declined to comment.
Between them, the three companies reported €30mn in revenues in 2019, the last year before the pandemic, and shuttled 125,000 passengers. Blade said the high gross-margin businesses would accelerate its timeline to profitability.
Blade’s revenues increased 187 per cent to $26.6mn in its latest quarter, driven largely by its business that transports human organs for transplants. It reported an $11mn net loss for the period, up from $4.2mn a year earlier.
Blade signed up high-profile early investors including IAC’s Barry Diller and David Zaslav, now CEO of Warner Bros Discovery Networks. It raised $365mn by going public last year. Ark Invest owns almost 12 per cent of the company, which has a market value of about $500mn.
