Poland’s Ace Aviation is reaping the benefits of major investment, after Germany’s Blue Airservices recently purchased a 40 per cent share in the company. Ace md Arek Zoltowski said: “Blue Airservices wanted to move into the eastern European market and based upon quite large contracts that I have, they were interested in this company. I was seeking to improve the quality and variety of helicopters I could have at my disposal. Now I have exactly that - with one phone call I can have the right helicopter to someone wherever they are in Poland.”

Blue Airservices is made up of an alliance between Rotorflug and HSD. “Both companies own more than 20 helicopters between them and are in the same line of business as us - they control gas pipelines, high voltage lines, vip flights and air ambulance,” said Zoltowski.

“They saw a great deal of

potential in our company, particularly through our government contracts. These guarantee an income over the coming years and allow us to gain more contracts for the whole alliance,” he added.

The German alliance first became aware of Ace Aviation’s expansion plans from an article published in EBAN, back in October 2002. “After the article was published, we had interest from French, Norwegian and German companies. We started correspondence quite quickly with representatives from Rotorflug and HSD, after which they came over to Poland,” he explained.

Ace currently operates one JetRanger and is looking to add another helicopter in the future. Said Zoltowski: “I can now offer any helicopter the alliance has, which

is a very expansive fleet. It puts us

in a position to bid competitively

for any contract in Poland and

has turned us from weakest to possibly the strongest helicopter charterer in the country.”

Under the agreement, Blue Airservices’ 40 per cent share will increase to 60 per cent once Poland joins the EU. “Our main objective is simply to make the company grow bigger and bigger. Once Poland is in the EU there will be no borders and helicopters will be able to fly freely between our neighbour countries (such as Latvia and Lithuania). This obviously offers us a great deal of potential to cope with what I believe will be an overwhelming amount of work,” he added.