Deliveries of super-medium helicopters will climb to around 170 per year by 2023, reaching a total of 1,200 rotorcraft over the period, predicts Flightglobal's insight report into the emerging weight class.
The report, produced in conjunction with Flightglobal's Ascend consultancy arm, highlights how there is sufficient demand in the market for all three new helicopters in the super-medium class – AgustaWestland's AW189, Airbus Helicopters' EC175 and Bell Helicopter's 525 Relentless – without any detrimental impact on values.
However, historic trends indicate that there may be a negative effect on the values of existing medium types.
AgustaWestland is planning to have delivered up to 15 of AW189s by the end of this year as it accelerates production of the 8.3t rotorcraft.
The Anglo-Italian airframer has first-mover advantage in the super-medium segment. Airbus will deliver only three of its 7.5t EC175s this year, and Bell's larger 525 Relentless is not scheduled to arrive until 2016.
So far, six AW189s have been handed over: two each to launch customer Bristow Group and Gulf Helicopters, one to Danish firm Bel Air Aviation – a second is due imminently – and a further example to Lease Corporation International.
However, the latter aircraft has been leased back to AgustaWestland for pilot training requirements and remains at its facility in Vergiate, Italy.
"The issue at the moment is training all the pilots. So the bottleneck is the availability of helicopters. In order to expand this capability, having one helicopter dedicated to this task is essential," says the airframer.
Further deliveries due this year include the first of the General Electric CT7-powered aircraft for Malaysia's Weststar Aviation and at least two examples in search-and-rescue configuration for Bristow Helicopters. These will be used in the UK as the nation transfers SAR capability from its armed forces to the private sector.
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Source: Cirium Dashboard
