Bristow signs for 17 H175s with ‘comprehensive’ support agreement

Bristow Group registered the largest order to date for the Airbus Helicopters H175 (formerly known as the EC175) at HAI Heli-Expo 2015, as it signed up for 17 aircraft along with a “comprehensive support services” agreement from the manufacturer. 

The firm order expanded on Bristow’s initial EC175 order agreement announced two years ago, but Jonathan Baliff, the operator’s president and CEO, drew particular attention to the importance of the accompanying support agreement.

During a business leader panel session at Helitech International 2014 in October, Baliff had called on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to take their share of the “availability risk” for operators following the purchase of an aircraft — and promised that Bristow Group would make no purchases from OEMs that failed to do so.

“The ability to look at the airline-style approach to a life-of-asset support agreement was a siren call that I made at Helitech less than six months ago,” said Baliff at the Heli-Expo contract announcement. “I made that to the entire industry. It was a very public call . . . and I would say I’m both pleased and in many ways honored that Airbus has answered that call from Helitech with this contract.”

Baliff said that Bristow had made a commitment — along with others in the offshore transportation industry — to share safety-related property as part its “Target Zero” initiative, and would no longer compete on safety. 

“The question is, if this industry is going to take the next step, like the airlines, to be a safer industry, and give away all the intellectual property associated with that, how do you compete? How do you compete in an industry which, for the last 30 years, we’ve competed on who’s safer? How you compete is in front of us today.”

While the details of the support contract were not released, Baliff said it covered a long period, and paid tribute to Airbus Helicopters for “allowing us to compete in the future on a differentiated basis, on both reliability but more importantly a life of service support on availability.”

Airbus Helicopters president and CEO Guillaume Faury said the contract was part of a long lasting relationship between the operator and the manufacturer. “This is a very important event for both our companies,” he said. “This order [shows] huge trust from Bristow in Airbus Helicopters. [Our] focus — since we launched the transformation of the company a bit more than one year ago — has been on customer satisfaction. This contract has been very much inspired by these values.”