OREANDA-NEWS. UTair Aviation has received its 20th Eurocopter helicopter, the final delivery of which marks the completion of the 2010 contract for AS 350/355 Ecureuil aircraft delivery. The 20 rotary wing aircraft, including 14 new AS350 B3e and 6 AS355 NP, have entered service within the airline's fleet.

“We continue our partnership with Eurocopter in view of the ongoing demand for a lighter class of helicopters used for a wide variety of missions ranging from monitoring oil pipelines and fire fighting to VIP transport and construction,” said UTair Helicopter Services President, Alexei Vinogradov. “Our company plans to purchase the new Eurocopter EC 175 helicopter model aimed at broadening its activities in the promising offshore oil and gas extraction market. UTair actively cooperates with Eurocopter Vostok in operating and servicing helicopters of this manufacture. The certified center for training Eurocopter pilots and technical engineers has been successfully operating for more than two years already and UTair Engineering is their official maintenance center”.

“This is another milestone in our cooperation with UTair and another step forward for us as a European manufacturer on the competitive Russian market,” commented Eurocopter Vostok CEO Laurence Rigolini on the occasion. “We are glad that UTair, one of the leading helicopter companies in the world and the largest operator in terms of fleet payload capacity, has selected our rotary wing aircraft types to service its client needs. This demonstrates the quality of Eurocopter helicopters and their versatility in the climatic extremes of Siberia. In no small measure this also acknowledges the high quality of the pre- and post-sales services provided in Russia and the CIS by our team of 30 Russian-speaking specialists. Their goal to provide world-class service is clearly successful”.

UTair began service operations with Eurocopter helicopters in 2007 with the acquisition of Bo-105 light-weight multi-purpose helicopters. Currently UTair has 28 Eurocopter helicopters in its fleet, including 4 Bo-105, 17 AS350 and 7 AS355 aircraft. These helicopters are used for VIP, passenger and cargo transport as well as for pipeline flying, construction and rescue operations.