Alaska Helicopter Tours was set up by its owner, who, before entering the world of aviation was an ex-US Marine, and an outdoor and ski guide. The company now offers four different operations all providing some of the finest outdoor experiences Alaska has to offer. HeliOps looks at this helicopter tour operation steeped in the wilds of Alaska.

In the Beginning

Having always been passionate about the outdoors, the owner originally moved to Alaska to become a ski-guide. He started his helicopter company as a partnership but when he subsequently became the sole managing owner, he had the freedom to operate and develop the business. “I had a second partner for a while but there was a bit of a conflict of personalities and when they left, I had a lot more autonomy to make my own choices. At the time I was the pilot/mechanic and when I brought in Mike Neeley it changed for the better”. In January 2019 Anchorage Helicopter Tours, a small operator that didn’t own any aircraft, was purchased and immediately re-branded as Alaska Helicopter Tours (AHT). The rebranding was done to reflect the fact that the business was not focused solely in the Anchorage area but provided a broader Alaskan experience.

The original aviation business was Alpha Aviation, utility operation but the plan was always to get into adventure guiding and tour operations using helicopters. “The tourism and guiding operations are great avenues to get people out into creation and to see all of that. It’s easier to scale and is in line with all of my passions, while Alpha is more on the practical side in the utility market,” he explained. The decision to acquire Anchorage Helicopter Tours was the beginning of major growth in the operation. “The Alaska branding made a lot more sense from a marketing perspective, with a much wider response to search results. It fit in with the company’s vision to showcase Alaska to a broader range of people instead of focusing on Anchorage.”

Knik’s Knack

The tour operation is based out of the Alaska Glacier Lodge, originally the Knik River Lodge under its previous ownership. It is now owned by the parent company and trading as a separate entity from the helicopter operations. The lodge is situated in the Knik River valley, with fantastic views over the Knik Glacier and some of the best heli-skiing terrain in its back yard. “It’s an amazing area, so close to Anchorage and yet almost inaccessible except by helicopter,” said Neely. The Knik valley sits in a rain-shadow so also boasts better weather than that usually experienced in Anchorage and the area boasts more glaciers and peaks than can easily be counted.

Initially, the collaborative arrangement that Anchorage Helicopters had with the lodge continued, basing operations from there to gain the benefit of the pre-existing marketing and customer base but the costs kept rising. The original lodge owners had said that they would sell the lodge to AHT, but then a competitor tried to buy it. AHT won out in the end.

City tours over Anchorage are not a priority, as it is not a particularly scenic city from the air, the flight time is greater and there is not the facility to land in the beautiful state park and national forest areas surrounding the city. Out of Knik however, there are a multitude of magnificent natural areas and features close with landings permitted. Although Alaska Helicopter Tours’ operation had initially utilized other operators, it soon became obvious that the greatest opportunity lay in establishing a suitable fleet and running everything using its own aircraft and associated businesses. Because their operations run as separate entities, AHT pays a percentage of proceeds to Alaska Glacier Lodge for rental of the land and such extras as check-in facilities. “Out of Knik we can keep the cost down for the customer and operate from close to all the amazing terrain out there,” commented Neeley.

Neeley’s is a keen outdoorsman with a background in operations and the service industry. He trained as a fixed-wing pilot and was originally employed as ground staff, driving the shuttle van, checking people into cabins and working as ground crew. “I’d moved up here to become a flight instructor but when Covid hit, things shutdown so this was an opportunity to still be involved in aviation, although I knew little about helicopters at the time,” he recalled. He worked for AHT for one summer and then returned to the Lower 48 to work as a flight instructor but AHT offered him a position running the tour operation from the next summer. “That offered more stability for me and my family as my wife was already working and settled in Alaska. Once here, I fell in love with the culture of the company and the vision that it was driving towards,” Neeley remarked.

Year Zero

During 2022 that Neeley refers to as ‘year-zero’, the opportunity arose to work with Teton Gravity Research on heli-skiing films and that significantly aided marketing of the new operations. After the first year of operation, the Covid pandemic hit and the tourism operation was severely impacted, although the marketing focus shifted to target the younger domestic singles and couples who were still travelling within the US, resulting in some growth through the Covid years. Post-Covid, the target clientele came from every demographic travelling to Alaska, with a particular focus on adventure and eco-tourism. Fortunately for the business, the structure also allowed the transfer of aircraft and capacity to the utility operation with Alpha, which significantly mitigated the downturn during Covid.

Around thirty percent of AHT’s customers come from cruise ship/travel agent business, with about twenty percent being international customers but the majority are independent travelers and families. According to Neeley, the average customer statistically is a 32-year-old female, and a significant proportion of clients come from the Indian, German, Japanese and Chinese markets; especially the younger demographic in the adventure tourism market. Additionally, aside from the Knik operation, the Alpha and Crown brands also support other lodges, particularly in the Denali, Wasilla, Homer and Kenai areas.

During the Covid period, the company pressed more into the utility market and found that there was plenty of demand. There is a waiting list of people that want to hire Alpha but they only accept utility work for which they feel they have qualified Alaskan-based pilots to do. It was explained that this is because they know the weather and what they’re getting into and so are a lot more proficient when they get out into the field. On the tourism side, pilots are brought in younger, trained up through the whole AHT program and then the ‘best of the best’ are moved over to the utility side.
Tourism Grows

After working for one summer running the tours, Neeley took on the additional role of running the Alpha Aviation utility operation, but growth was rapid throughout the company. “After a year of that, the tours had grown significantly, and we brought on an operations manager on the tour side, and I focused on growing the utility side of the company.” The company now employs a flight operations team of four or five people under Base Manager Rendon Corbin, who runs the tour and utility operations including overseeing the pilots. Including seasonal employments, the combined companies employ around seventy staff during the summer and Alpha boasts a full-time roster of around 28 personnel year-round.

When employing staff, the first thing that is looked for is a passion for or background in aviation. Many positions are seasonal and the season ties in well with the US education system, so many summer employees are college students, with many of them returning year after year until they finish their college education. Neeley estimates that around sixty percent are returning employees, and the majority of the balance are new hires due to the growth of the companies.

Fast growth can cause problems with delegation and control, but management had no problem relinquishing control to the people they hired. “Our first core value is having selfless, humble leaders with a strong passion for what we do, and another core value is hiring people with strong self-governance and competence. We immediately saw Mike’s aptitude and how he personified our values so I had no hesitation in giving him the necessary freedoms,” stated the founder. Neeley commented that the trust and respect that was granted to him passed down through the entire organization. “That culture and respect is the main reason that my career path changed so drastically when I joined the company,” he acknowledged.

Pilot Progression

A large proportion of the tour pilot positions are also seasonal. The pilots must be passionate about flying in Alaska and have values that align with the company’s vision and goals, and who are seeking a challenge but are self-governing and humble. New hires generally need to have a minimum of between 700 and 1,000 hours and a seasonal position typically logs between 300 and 500 hours a year. Neeley explained, “Alaska’s too dynamic and adventurous to not be humble, so we look for quiet, competent pilots who are trainable. The worst guys we get are those with Part 135 experience who already think they know everything, whereas we want people we can put through our Alaskan transition and mold into what is best for the customer and clients”. The company has a very strong training program with comprehensive indoctrination, flight training and Alaskan transition components, covering such essentials as high altitude flying, glacier landings, Alaskan weather, wind-shadows and turbulence. As Neeley highlighted, “The biggest killer of pilots in Alaska is the weather.”
In return for its investment, the company looks for a two-year return of service from its pilots. “Thankfully we have a lot of opportunities for them to move into a turbine with the R66 or the A-Star in year two, or even into utility after year three. The majority of our pilots are returning year after year,” Neeley related. “The utility work is not for everybody as we don’t send out a team of three or four people to service a remote mining job, for example. We send a pilot, Alaskan to the core, who can stand on a 55-gallon drum and lift a 75lb cargo net, fix all sorts of things and just get the job done and not everyone is capable of that sort of work. Something else to be aware of is that, due to the nature of our operation and where we go, no flight or landing is exactly the same as any other, so our pilots have to be totally engaged, and always able to identify a new, safe landing spot because things are constantly changing.”

He reported that no other company that had hired ex-Alaska Helicopter Tours or Alpha pilots had ever complained about their caliber or professionalism. “In my opinion, we have the best heli-ski training in Alaska, if not the whole north-west and we’re not afraid to throw the time at people if we think they have the character and loyalty that’s going to pay off in the long term.” There are currently five or six pilots in each of years one and two, with just one typically moving across to Alpha each year for a full-time position on the utility work, where extremely high levels of precision, competence and professionalism are demanded. It is a competitive process, and the pilots know they are being watched all the time to determine who is the best candidate.

More than Helicopters

The acquisition of the lodge expanded the company’s role from helicopter operator to also include hotelier, restauranteur and landlord, expansions that dovetailed neatly into the founder’s vision of creating a complete Alaskan experience. Clients are picked up from the airport and shuttled in the company’s vans to the lodge, guided with their own guides and taken out in company helicopters; all so the company can curate the entire experience. It was claimed that in the past, the helicopter tours got great reviews while the lodge got some rather bad ones. Things have improved significantly since the change of ownership. The integration of helicopter facilities has allowed Alaska Helicopters to now focus on how best to schedule and organize back-to-back tours, minimizing dead legs, with the machines dropping off one tour, then returning to pick up another and so on. This eliminates the aircraft sitting on the ground with a tour waiting and keeps them flying, which minimizes costs, the cycles and the cost to the clients. “It’s opened up our ability to increase volume and we’re good on volume now,” Neeley explained.

Fleet

With the tour operation running one AS350 A-Star, a Robinson R66 and six or seven R44s, a significant volume of tours can be conducted with a typical day in the summer season seeing 125 to 200 tour customers. Neeley commented that around 75 percent of customers have booked one to two weeks ahead and the target demographic is the fully independent traveler. “One of the challenges we’ve faced has been ensuring we have the availability to handle independent travelers for same-day bookings or up to 72 hours’ notice. We have dedicated tour times and tour blocks, as well as dedicated transfer times to and from Anchorage to have extra capacity to handle those short-notice bookings. Within a thirty-minute notice of a tour, we can book someone in, put them in a helicopter and get their safety briefing and waivers completed.” There are occasions when a tour has to be declined due to lack of capacity – particularly with paddle-boarding and dog-sledding tours, which book up fairly quickly – but every effort is made to reschedule or shuffle the aircraft to accommodate demand. Fortunately, having the separate tour and utility operations does permit the transfer of aircraft either way if necessary to satisfy peaks in demand and it also allows balancing the cycles on the fleet of A-Stars.

Value Adding

The final entity in their suite of operations is Crown Mountain Guides. Crown operates predominantly in the heli-skiing and bespoke adventure tour market and is the pinnacle of the high-end market that they target. Crown also rents facilities and services from Alaska Glacier Lodge, maintaining the comprehensive level of customer curation that is the hallmark of the group. “It’s more of a boutique high-end heli-skiing, heli-biking, heli-fishing and heli-adventures model. You have a dedicated A-Star and everything’s guided in an all-inclusive, thoroughly curated luxury four-to-seven-day package experience during which clients can experience the full range of activities, whereas the Alaska Heli Tours is more of a standard volume model,” Neeley outlined. A feature of the more affluent Crown clientele is that there are many repeat customers.

The activities that are available are widely varied and offer far more than just scenic helicopter rides. Paddle-boarding, dog-sledding, heli-skiing, hiking, pack-rafting, snow-shoeing, sightseeing tours with glacier landings and walks, biking, ice climbing; even weddings and elopements can be provided and catered for in picturesque areas set aside from other tour locations, along with the fine meals, spa, hot-tub and accommodation provided at the lodge. The company runs a permitted dog-sledding camp a short flight up the valley, complete with an Iditarod champion dog-team that runs a two-mile circuit with clients.

The highest volume of tourism work is in the summer months although tours do continue year-round. Some of the tours do change in winter, offering ice climbing and modifying the glacier tours, but around the end of September things are slowing down on the tourism front. There has been an uptick in winter tourism over the last couple of years though. When Neeley first started, AHT didn’t operate at all during winter but there is now enough steady business to carry on all year round, although daylight is down to about six hours at the winter solstice and the tour fleet is cut to about three Robinsons and the A-Star, flying approximately one third as much as during summer. Flying is conducted from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. during the summer. The hours are restricted to those hours to minimize disruption to neighbors. The top three tours are the Grand Knik, paddle-boarding and dog-sledding. During the winter, the Grand Knik, weddings and elopements are the bulk of the business.

Robinson Capabilities

A favorite tour for many is the popular ‘Grand Knik’, a two-hour tour that includes 45 minutes of sightseeing, an alpine landing with spectacular views over the entire Knik Valley, a landing at either an ice-wall or iceberg viewing area and a third landing on the glacier to explore and see the blue melt-pools. Of course, if the helicopter is landing and shutting down several times during a tour, it creates a major issue with cycle times and that is where the R44 comes into its own. The piston-engined Robinson offers extremely good visibility and does not have the issue of start-stop cycles that impact a turbine-powered aircraft. It is close to its comfortable performance limit at typical loads though, and it was explained that the 44s are not flown in winds over 25kts, or gust spreads of over 15kts. One R44 is fitted with the new horizontal stabilizer and all 44s in the fleet will either be delivered new so equipped or be retrofitted with it.

The R66 has both pros and cons. It is cheaper to insure as a percentage of hull value and is a more capable platform than the 44. It does, however, have a lower engine hour life and is almost double the cost to purchase. “With the R66, we move to that ferry system so the aircraft stays running most of the day. We can drop people off, then pick up another party and drop them off, and so on,” Neeley advised. Despite the need to consider start cycles, the extra seat and greater gross weight of the R66 makes it a superior platform for four-person families or small groups that could not all fit into a single R44.

A second R66 was leased in mid-2024 and is the sling-loading version, approved for left-seat piloting for slinging and fitted with a swappable left door with gauges and sling-loading bubble window. There is an ongoing plan to expand Alpha’s utility business, but in a slow, cautious and considered fashion. “We’re moving into the Huey, looking at the Bell 205 and things like that but it’s not something we’ll do quickly, mainly because of the skill required,” opined Neeley.

Expanding the business geographically is helping increase the experiences that can be offered and a Robinson has been based in Homer this past season. That has opened such opportunities as bear viewing and access to beaches and waterfalls that are not available in the Knik area. Looking further ahead, Neeley believes that expanding into other geographic areas, perhaps with a new boutique lodge, will offer opportunities to showcase other parts of Alaska and offer activities and Alaskan landscapes that are not readily accessible from the Knik area.
Giving Back

The Founder is a man of strong faith and alongside his revenue business, his company currently partners with Alaska’s Center for Counselling, flying men’s groups out into the mountains for free as part of the center’s week-long intensive counselling courses. “It gets them out of their unhealthy environments and into amazing settings to sit and reflect, gaining perspective on life,” he said. He also donates financially to other support and rehab’ programs in the area. The business also benefits Alaskan state coffers and as Neeley explained, “Ninety percent of where we go is managed by the state and I like to think we bring the state a lot of money, because we pay a day-rate for our daily usage, landings and things like that. Some of the permits also have a daily usage rate and we help promote Alaskan tourism. We’ve helped out the state with goat and sheep studies and we’re very conscientious about our flight path when we see wildlife in any given area.”

When asked to define what makes the group of companies different, it was explained that the company focuses on contracts that are easier on the machines and sustainable for the pilots and mechanics, with no mechanic spending more than six days away from home in the past year. “It’s way harder to find a great mechanic than a great pilot but our maintenance team of seven guys is extremely efficient, meticulous and make very practical real-world decisions. They are amazing at what they do. It’s the top-down approach of having the nicest, cleanest helicopters we can offer and providing the total guest experience. Relationships we’ve built over the last few years have let us hand-pick the best guides and every employee wants to showcase Alaska. We’re very prideful of it and that’s reflected in the experience we provide our clientele. We really want to attract people to Alaska, fueling that adventurous mindset.”