February 24, 2009
American Eurocopter will retain its U.S. market leadership through a multi-faceted investment and development policy that includes expanding the industrial base, growing the company’s service offerings, and enhancing its strong commitment to both government and civilian customers.
This was the message of American Eurocopter President & CEO Marc Paganini at HELI-EXPO 2009, where the EADS North America business unit outlined its strategy and initiatives during the February 22-24 helicopter industry event in Anaheim, California.
Paganini said American Eurocopter was the U.S. market’s no. 1 commercial helicopter supplier again in 2008 – the ninth time during the past 10 years for this ranking, and its eighth consecutive year in the top position.
American Eurocopter delivered a total of 170 helicopters in 2008, compared to 150 the previous year, and 106 in 2006. Last year’s deliveries were composed of 135 commercial rotorcraft, along with 35 UH-72A Lakota Light Utility Helicopters for the U.S. Army – which plans to order 345 of the aircraft.
Last year’s production output brought the total number of helicopters delivered by American Eurocopter to over 520 aircraft during the past four years – with this upswing accompanied by corresponding increases in the company’s staffing.
“Our 30 percent revenue increase for 2008 was nearly matched by the year’s 23 percent growth in employees – which underscores the policy of backing our sales expansion with the necessary human resources,” Paganini said. “Overall, we have almost doubled the employee base at American Eurocopter’s Texas and Mississippi locations in the past four years.”
The company is now focusing on attracting young people and training them for the company’s future activity as new high-value job openings continue to develop over the long term. Its efforts include outreach programs to the local communities in coordination with schools, educational institutions, colleges and universities. “The American Eurocopter employees who will be building our 345th UH-72A Lakota in 2016 are those students in high school today, or just starting college,” Paganini said.
American Eurocopter’s economic impact in the United States is estimated at $740 million for both the company’s direct activity and the business brought to its network of some 1,000 vendors around the country. These financial benefits are to further increase with the growing percentage of local content in its products, which also will spur new employment opportunities.
An additional expansion of American Eurocopter’s U.S. presence will come with new company investments in engineering capabilities, training capacity and customer service. This will build on the more than $80 million already invested in new facilities and expansion over the past five to six years, which has brought its industrial footprint to almost one million square feet of facilities located in the United States.
As part of the new investments, American Eurocopter today announced a significant expansion of its engineering staff. This will result in the establishment of a U.S.-based rotorcraft engineering department capable of full-service engineering solutions for both government and civil customers.
The department’s goals are to position the company as a key player in rotorcraft design, certification and systems integration; expand its capabilities in technical project management, structural and avionics design; as well as provide the capability for integration and certification of primary and secondary structural components and assemblies.
“We’ll be basically doubling the size of our engineering center in 2009, so I want those good, young engineers to know that we are hiring!” Paganini said.
The emphasis on U.S. services also includes American Eurocopter’s decision to construct a new state-of-the-art call service center at its Grand Prairie, Texas, headquarters, which follows Eurocopter’s inauguration of a similar facility in Hong Kong this month – joining an already-operational call center in Europe.
Two other developments announced by American Eurocopter at HELI-EXPO 2009 are linked to the company’s emphasis on working with its operators in improving helicopter flight safety.
The first is American Eurocopter’s decision to invest in a new AS350 Level B Full Flight Simulator, which will join the EC135/EC145 full-motion simulator that recently became operational at its expanded Grand Prairie headquarters’ training center.
Also unveiled at HELI-EXPO 2009 is an American Eurocopter initiative to equip new-delivery helicopters with a low-cost, low-weight data collection tool for flight safety monitoring. Called the ALERTS Vision 1000, this cockpit ceiling-mounted device is a joint effort with Appareo Systems, and will be offered initially as standard equipment on all U.S.-delivered AStar family aircraft beginning in 2010, with its installation subsequently extended to other helicopters.
