Dubai Airshow: Russian Helicopters offers regional operators a new approach with joint venture

“The conference was entitled ‘New Approaches to After-sale Service and Maintenance of Mi Helicopters’ which basically says it all,” says Andrei Shibitov, CEO. “We have entered in a joint venture with Airfreight Aviation, International Rotocraft Services.

The new company will service Russian made rotocraft at its base in Sharjah and at MRO centres all over the region. This new joint venture will help the interaction of design engineers and dealers with operators, offer material and technical support to local operators.”

600 Russian-made helicopters currently operate in the Middle East and North Africa. Of these a significant part are operated by member states of the global anti-terrorism coalition and state authorities of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

“We will deliver at least 50 Mi-17 helicopters to the region in 2009 and 2010, and we estimate around 120 more deliveries of Russian made Rotocraft by 2015.

“The region is very important to us. We want to stress we carry out our work in strict accordance with the schedule which will allow us to deliver helicopters on time to operators,” says Shibitov.

International RotorCraft Services is also planning to open a service centre in Afghanistan soon.