– Leonardo is celebrating at HAI’s Heli-Expo 2020 the longstanding partnerships and outstanding achievements of some of its official distributors who have contributed to the growing success and presence of its helicopters worldwide. Among them, Sloane Helicopters, Mitsui Bussan Aerospace and Rotortrade have supported the introduction or the growth of several models in key regions in recent years.

The 25-year partnership with Sloane Helicopters has led to the sale of over 80 aircraft in the UK and Ireland to date. Following the outstanding success of earlier variants of the AW109 and the AW109 GrandNew, particularly for VIP-VVIP/Corporate transport but also for EMS; the new AW109 Trekker has more recently found success while the collaboration has also been extended to the AW169 new generation light intermediate twin.

Mitsui Bussan Aerospace has been key to the introduction of the world-class AW139 intermediate twin helicopter in the growing Japanese market, with the first aircraft entering service in 2006. Over 60 units have been delivered since then to customers performing a wide range of missions such as law enforcement, SAR, fire-fighting, disaster relief, VIP, electronic newsgathering. In recent years the collaboration has been extended to the AW169 and AW189 types. More than 70 units from the whole AW Family have been sold to Japanese operators so far.

Rotortrade is a leading helicopter distributor and has been the sole global distributor of Leonardo’s pre-owned helicopters since 2014. The collaboration has led to a total of nearly 70 sales all over the world Rotortrade has offices in Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles, Marseilles, Mexico City, Montreal, Paris, Singapore and Melbourne.