Ascent hopes helicopter ride-sharing service will take off in Philippines
ASCENT Urban Mobility Philippines Corp. said it is eyeing to expand its intracity helicopter ride-sharing services in the country to cover Visayas and Mindanao.
The technology start-up said in a media event on Wednesday it wants to add new hubs for its helicopter services within the year. Its initial operations cover Metro Manila, Clark and Tagaytay.
“Today we are already flying in Manila, Clark and Tagaytay. Extending the Philippines to Visayas and Mindanao, we hope to do that hopefully this year,” Ascent Flights Global Pte Ltd. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Lionel Sinai-Sinelnikoff said.
He said Ascent also intends to eventually reach Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries in Southeast Asia, and East Asia in the future. Ascent’s platform, which will be relaunched on April 8, which will allow customers to book online a helicopter ride going to Makati City, Bonifacio Global City (BGC), Quezon City, Mandaluyong City and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA); as well as Clark and Tagaytay.
The company currently has three helicopters operated by INAEC Aviation Corp., which it may expand to seven if the demand rises. Ascent said traveling from NAIA to Clark via helicopter will take just 30 minutes, from the average of three hours by road. The price of a seat on the NAIA-Clark flight costs P25,900.
From the 20-minute chopper ride from NAIA to Tagaytay, one seat costs P21,900. A seat on a three-minute flight from Makati to BGC is also available for P6,900.“It is not new... But it is the only time that it’s been offered here that you can buy by the seat. That’s the key, per seat. That’s what makes it more available to more people, and it will be for people whose cost of time is expensive,” Ascent Urban Mobility Philippines Corp. President Evelyn Lim-Forbes said on the sidelines of the launch.
Mr. Sinai-Sinelnikoff said while their headquarters is in Singapore, they decided to kick off the service in the Philippines seeing a more likely demand in the country.
“The Philippines is the best place for us to start... Let’s start by something that you have here...you have a lot of traffic. You also have a lot of connectivity issues between cities. Also, in the Philippines, you have a well-developed park of helicopters and heliports with low utilization. All that being handled, managed and regulated by an advanced, open-minded regulator, the DoTr (Department of Transportation) .... All that combined makes the market interesting for us,” he said.
Transportation Undersecretary for Aviation Manuel Antonio L. Tamayo said the DoTr welcomes the transportation alternative offered by Ascent.
“Naysayers might think that opening up our air space for shuttle services is tantamount to giving up on solving road traffic. We at DoTr think otherwise. Our secretary, Arthur P. Tugade, fervently believes in a basket of solutions,” he said during the launch.
Last year, Ascent launched a similar helicopter ride-sharing service in partnership with PhilJets.