July 19 2018 — Flights from the mainland to islands, as well as up and down the coast.
We’ve seen this movie before in Croatia. But Helitours, now offering transnational helicopter flights from Brač and Mali Lošinj has a different plan.
Will things end differently this time?
Conversations about higher-quality tourism always include better hotels, better restaurants, more exclusivity, more luxury.
Yet no one seemed to ask how guests used to proper pampering will reach these high-end destinations? Offering scenic rides high over the Adriatic and countryside seems a no-brainer. Lacking a proper helicopter operator seemed quite daft.
Slovenian firm Helitours has answered the call, offering helicopter transports all along the coast and even to Zagreb, according to hrturizam.hr. The variations offered by such a service seem limitless; from transfers to day-trips. The helicopters are also available for site-seeing from above — in case you’ve ever flown a drone and wished you could ride it instead.
The firm currently has two Airbus Dauphins ready to quickly take up to eight guests from A-to-B, in style. The company stationed their choppers in Brač and Mali Lošinj, ready to cover the entire Dalmatian coast.
The helicopters have a range of about 350 kilometers, meaning trips to neighboring Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Italy are also available. Mali Lošinj to Venice, for example, is about an hour’s flight.
Helitours is currently working in conjunction with Jardanka Grupa in Mali Lošinj and Sunčani Hvar, but hopes to expand its partnerships to include other hotels. It’s working slowly though, hoping to build a presence and reputation before further expansion.
"We offer hotels the possibility to have an additional helicopter transport service for their guests, how to get them at the airport or at a seaport, so they can organize additional tourist packages,” Tom Mastnak of Helitours told hrturizam.
The offer lets hotels earn extra via commission, he added. Finding a proper landing spot isn’t an issue either since Helitours has a license which allows them to land as close to 100 meters to a hotel — provided the hotel’s owners approve, according to Mastnak.
It’s been a slow climb for the company, which first started offering lessons. It then expanded to panoramic flights then bought the helicopters it uses today.
The helicopters also offer one more potential, much-needed benefit: emergency flights. The prospect of a medical catastrophe looms large over everyone roaming Croatia’s islands — resident or tourist. The inability to reach a mainland hospital or facility safely and quickly is a constant bugaboo for Croatia’s boduli [islanders] and their guests.
Helitours plans to be available for such situations, as much as it can.
Of course, flights between the mainland and islands aren’t new, as European Coastal Airlines successfully offered the service — however briefly — before being grounded for still-confounding reasons.
Helitours hopes to avoid a similar fate.
