Heliportugal has purchased fellow Portuguese AOC holder United Jet Services following a revalidation process from Portuguese CAA INAC. The operator will now be able to base its fixed wing aircraft, including a Hawker 900 and King Air 350, in its home country, currently having them based abroad. However, cfo Luis Ferreira says: “We are working on the contracts for the King Air and the Hawker, and our leads are in Africa so it is very likely that we will send them there. We bought UJS here in Portugal and this means that we are removing these aircraft from the AOC of our Turkish partner Santay.”

The Heliportugal group is over 30 years old, and first exported its resources in 2008, sending three AW139s and three Dauphin N3s to offshore oil and gas platforms in the Black Sea and the Gulf. Through third party operations it is also active in the North Sea and Nigeria. In addition to its Dauphin N contracts in Liberia it is looking to expand its Africa presence for 2014.

Continues Ferreira: “Our focus is in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In Portugal we don't have many opportunities, apart from the maintenance of six Kamov 32A and three B3 state-owned helicopters, and some firefighting.

“The main focus is certainly Africa, as we have already been working in Ghana and are hoping to go back there soon. We have started in the Ivory Coast this year, and have plans to operate in Kenya and Mozambique as well.”

The company's influence does not stop there; it flies two B2 Squirrels in Egypt for electric company missions, and the UJS takeover is set to consolidate fixed wing activity. This sector of business has been developed over a six-year period, with three Hawker 900s, a King Air 350 and 200GT.

“These machines have been working in Turkey for some time, and two of them finished their contracts at the end of 2013 for the Turkish ministry of health,” he adds. “They will be moving to Africa soon, and will form the basis of our fixed wing operation under the expanded group. This means that we now have complete separation between the rotary and fixed wing sides of the business.”