Bond Air Services has been awarded a new, five-year contract, worth £8 million, by air ambulance charity, Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance. The contract will see Bond continue to provide a complete helicopter support service, including aircraft, crew and maintenance support until 2017.

Bond has been providing the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service for the Air Ambulance Charity since 2000 and it will continue to operate the Charity’s existing Eurocopter EC135T2i, on a seven days a week basis, from its operational facilities at Henstridge.

The aircraft, which undertook 665 missions across the two counties last year, will operate 12 hours per day in summer and 10 hours a day in winter. Understanding the importance of aircraft availability, Bond, will also provide back-up aircraft, pilots and engineers support for the service to cover any periods of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance which will allow this critical service to benefit from the 99.4 per cent availability that Bond currently deliver to its customers.