Canterbury police have spent more than $883,000 on commercial helicopter use over the past five years, but are unable to say how many times the aircraft were used during that period.

The figures were released to chrislynchmedia.com following an Official Information Act request, although police initially said the figures didn’t exist.

It shows Canterbury police paid a total of $883,175 excluding GST on commercial helicopters between January 2020 and September 2025.

Annual costs included $102,720 in the 2020 financial year, rising to $143,307 in 2020 to 2021, $111,509 in 2021 to 2022, and peaking at $165,552 in 2022 to 2023.

Spending remained high in 2023 to 2024 at $165,519 before dropping to $142,425 in 2024 to 2025.

A further $52,144 was spent between July and September 2025.

Police said commercial helicopters had been used on 11 occasions in Canterbury since July 2025 for operational purposes, excluding training flights.

Flight times ranged from 12 minutes to 1 hour and 22 minutes. The incidents included theft, robbery, traffic and vehicle offences, and offender management. Several deployments related to multiple incident types.

Police said commercial helicopters were used when required to support frontline operations.

The spokesperson said police relied on commercial helicopters in situations where aerial support was needed and police aircraft were unavailable or unsuitable, and said each deployment was assessed on operational need.