PremiAir showcases its range of expertise at Helitech 2011.

Tuesday 27th September 2011

PremiAir will participate at Helitech, the largest dedicated helicopter exhibition in Europe this week (September 27-29) Stand 812. Group Managing Director, David McRobert will be part of the senior management team showcasing PremiAir's full range of services, comprising aircraft management, charter, maintenance and engineering, police air support and advanced pilot training. PremiAir Global, the company's pre-owned aircraft sales arm, will be promoting its full package of aircraft sales and acquisition services and showing a VIP Sikorsky S76A+ (G-BURS), which is for sale, on the static display.

With a dedicated staff now exceeding 200, PremiAir operates 90,000 sq feet of modern hangar facilities and a full range of business aircraft support across six UK bases: Blackbushe Airport, Denham Aerodrome, Oxford Airport, Biggin Hill Airport, Farnborough Airport and The London Heliport.

Engineering & Maintenance:

Director of Engineering and Maintenance, Mike Preston, who joined PremiAir from NetJets in March reports an uptick in demand for the company's maintenance services: "As business aviation aircraft utilisation steadily improves and used aircraft sales activity rises, PremiAir has observed a parallel uplift at our rotary maintenance base at Blackbushe Airport."

PremiAir's Blackbushe facility is one of the world's largest and most capable executive helicopter maintenance and engineering centres. The focus is on supporting twin turbine IFR helicopters and PremiAir maintains extensive fleets of Sikorsky, Bell, Eurocopter and Agusta Westland models.

The company is acknowledged as one of the world's leading Sikorsky S76 specialists, having been a Sikorsky Service Centre for more than 30 years. PremiAir recently also added the S92 to its aircraft maintenance accreditations. PremiAir is also a long standing Bell Customer Service Facility with unrivalled experience of supporting the Bell 222 and 430 light twins. The company's engineers are also trained and ready to support the new Bell 429 as soon as it arrives in territory.

PremiAir has supported the UK Eurocopter maintenance support market for the past 10 years, maintaining a large fleet of AS355, AS365 Dauphin and EC155 twin turbine helicopters. In addition, the UK's growing fleet of Agusta Westland 109E/F Power and Grand series aircraft is also bringing increased demand for PremiAir's maintenance services.

PremiAir is also a Pratt & Whitney Canada Recognised Maintenance Facility supporting PW200 and PT6B series helicopter engines. The company holds the following approvals: EASA Part 145; FAAPart 145; Bermudan CAA; Cayman CAA; EASA Part 21 G and J (Manufacture and Design) and EASA Part M subparts G and I.

PremiAir Global:

PremiAir Global was formed three years ago as the organisation's aircraft sales and brokerage specialist, focused on providing the company's broad network of charter clients with a team of independent, specialist advisors able to support the buying and selling of aircraft with a full suite of high quality services. Headquartered at Farnborough Airport, PremiAir Global, which markets rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, currently has 14 executive helicopters on its books spanning all helicopter manufacturers.

PremiAir Global has witnessed an upturn in business this year but the executive helicopter market has been slightly slower to react than the jet market. "However, we are finding well priced helicopters are now beginning to have interest shown in them," said Gordon Potter, Aircraft Sales Manager at PremiAir Global. "Sales are starting to pick up and we have LOI on several mid-size aircraft, which we hope to close in the next month. Enquiry levels are encouragingly on the increase and the general consensus is that the market place is definitely brightening up."

Charter & Management:

Neil Gibson is responsible for PremiAir's Charter & Management business: "PremiAir has been a key player in the management and charter of executive helicopters for 30 years. We offer clients an integrated helicopter and executive jet management service, backed-up by our extensive in-house aircraft maintenance, airworthiness management and aircraft sales teams, with a focus on delivering the highest quality services throughout all our business operations."

Gibson highlights an encouraging increase in charter operations, reporting aircraft utilisation and charter revenues above budget and closer to those experienced before the economic climate worsened. "We're experiencing a pleasing re-emergence of corporate incentive and sports hospitality bookings with the British Grand Prix and Open Golf Championship adding positively to charter revenues so far this year."

PremiAir's entire charter fleet and several additional helicopters were utilised for the British Grand Prix in July," said Gibson. "We flew more than 370 passengers into Silverstone over the three day event, with every passenger treated to a luxury service - champagne breakfast, dedicated terminal facilities, personal handling by PremiAir staff and the reassurance that our large fleet of VIP helicopters and highly trained team could accommodate any last minute changes of plan."

www.premiair.co.uk