Still successes for the AgustaWestland helicopters of LeonardoFinmeccanica. The company in fact announced today the signing of a contract with the Swiss company Centaurium Aviation Ltd. for a light twin-engine GrandNew helicopter. The order was placed during an official ceremony at the Helitech show (Amsterdam). The machine, equipped with a special VIP configuration, will come into service in the 2017 and will be operated by Mountainflyers, which will inaugurate the VIP helicopter transfer service at Bern Airport, to quickly reach Swiss and European destinations.
The GrandNew is also the protagonist of the Japan Aerospace show which is being held in Tokyo these days. Leonardo, in partnership with the distributor Kaigai Corporation, confirms its leadership in the Japanese market of twin-engine light helicopters with an order from a private customer for a model intended to perform private / corporate transport tasks. In addition, two more GrandNews have been delivered and will soon be in service in the prefectures of Niigata and Kagoshima, operated with helicopter rescue duties respectively by Shizuoka Air Commuter Corporation and Kagoshima International Aviation. These recent successes further expand the GrandNew's presence in the Japanese market, with over 80 AW109 / Grand series helicopters sold to date to also perform public safety, corporate transport and publishing support operations.
It is precisely in this context that Nippon TV and Chukyo TV select two AW139 intermediate helicopters for Electronic News Gathering (ENG) to support their respective television footage. The announcement was made by Leonardo and the Japanese distributor Mitsui Bussan Aerospace during a ceremony always held at the Japanese aerospace show. The signing of the two letters of intent follows the joint announcement with Mitsui Bussan which took place last July during the Farnborough International Airshow, which included the delivery of the fiftieth AW139 in Japan in the 2016.
Also at Helitech a contract was signed with the German HeliService international GmbH for an AW169 for offshore transport tasks in support of wind power plants, to be delivered in the 2017. The company had already received a first aircraft of the same type in the summer, which represented for Leonardo the entry into the German market of the AW169 and made HeliService the first customer of the new model for offshore transport tasks in Europe.
