Published Sep 21, 2026 | 12:03 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 21, 2026 | 12:03 PM
Under the initial contract, the government gets 25 flying hours a month for ₹80 lakh. Hours beyond that are billed separately.
The helicopter service the previous LDF government contracted is once again whipping up a political storm — though this time, quite literally, the chopper may have nowhere to go.
Its three-year contract with Chipson Aviation ended on Saturday, 19 September.
Keralam’s police chief has already made a case for keeping it in the air, arguing that the ₹80 lakh monthly lease works out cheaper than scrambling for a helicopter every time an emergency strikes.
The state Home Department has examined the proposal and the file has now reached Chief Minister VD Satheesan.
A decision is expected after he returns from Delhi.
The government has two choices: keep paying the fixed monthly rent or let the contract lapse and hire a helicopter whenever the need arises.
The second option sounds economical until the bills arrive. Emergency hiring can command a hefty hourly rate, particularly when the government needs an aircraft at short notice.
Under the initial contract, the government gets 25 flying hours a month for ₹80 lakh. Flights beyond that are billed separately, at ₹90,000 per flying hour.
Interestingly, the state has not yet exhausted the monthly 25-hour quota.
The DGP’s argument is therefore fairly straightforward. The helicopter is not meant to be a luxury ride. It is available for organ transportation, disaster response, Maoist surveillance and VVIP movement. In some cases, the police chief says, flying can also make more financial sense than putting a VVIP convoy on the road.
On paper, it is a case for retaining the chopper. On the ground, however, there is a little political turbulence.
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Satheesan knows the helicopter debate rather well. As Leader of the Opposition, he had attacked the previous LDF government’s decision to lease a chopper for around ₹80 lakh a month, describing the expenditure as extravagant at a time when the State was struggling to meet even routine financial commitments.
The argument was simple then: a government facing a financial crunch should not be spending such amounts on a helicopter.
Politics, like helicopters, sometimes changes direction.
After becoming Chief Minister, Satheesan himself found his name attached to a helicopter trip.
His journey from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi in July-August became fodder for the Opposition, particularly because reports linked the visit to his father-in-law, who was undergoing treatment in the Kochi region.
The first attempt was reportedly abandoned because of bad weather. The chopper returned to Thiruvananthapuram before the journey was made later. The episode gave the Opposition an easy line of attack: the man who had questioned the helicopter had now boarded one.
Satheesan said the trip was official. He said he had to meet an investment delegation that had already met the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and had limited time before returning to Delhi. He had initially planned to take the Vande Bharat Express but changed his plan because of the meeting’s urgency.
He also had another defence: the helicopter was already on a fixed ₹80 lakh monthly contract. Whether the government used all the flying hours or not, it had to pay the monthly fee. Therefore, there was no additional expenditure merely because he flew in it.
That argument may now acquire a curious afterlife.
The same Chief Minister who once questioned the wisdom of paying ₹80 lakh a month is now sitting with a file asking him to approve another two years of the very arrangement he had criticised.
The helicopter, meanwhile, remains politically neutral.
It does not know whether the passenger is a Chief Minister, a minister, an organ or an emergency team. It only knows how to fly.
The real question for the government is less amusing: whether ₹80 lakh a month is an avoidable extravagance or the price of having an aircraft ready when Keralam suddenly needs one.
But whichever way the file travels after the Chief Minister returns from Delhi, one thing is certain. The helicopter debate has already taken off.
