Heli Air Monaco has brought its fleet of helicopters to eight, with the addition of a brand new EC-130. Director Patrick Crovetto told

EBAN: “Me and my brother

Jacques started the company in 1976 and since then we’ve been slowly building things up.

“All eight of our helicopters are Eurocopters, so it made sense to

opt for the EC-130. We believe it’s important to add new aircraft to

the fleet to keep it modern and it’s already proved popular over the first month of flying.”

The Crovettos started the company in Monaco because they’re citizens, rather than choosing it for its geographic location. “In the first year we started, we flew around 250 to 300 people from Monaco to Nice.

“We now fly an average of 250 people a day on this route, which we couldn’t have predicted 27 years ago,” said Crovetto. The scheduled service between Nice and Monaco carries around 100,000 people a year, with clients using the helicopters for business, congress and events such as the Grand Prix.

The company is also involved in ad-hoc charter and flies regularly to destinations such as St Tropez, Corsica, Italy and Switzerland. Said Crovetto: “Our base is at Monaco Heliport, but we have desks at Nice Airport, St Tropez and Cannes. There is a great deal of competition from other helicopter charter companies at Monaco and the problem is that there’s very little space. But we have no other option because Monaco is simply a small country.”

Over the last six years Heli Air Monaco’s business has remained fairly stable, so it doesn’t envisage any further fleet expansion in the near future. “We purchased another aircraft because some days we need ten helicopters and other days six is enough. So I think eight is a just about the perfect number,” he added.