Swiss operators Helog, Heliswiss and Rotex Helicopter have formed a subsidiary operating company under the name Helog & Partner.

The company will combine the larger helicopters in the three fleets in order to make them more readily available to clients. Helog, Heliswiss and Rotex will all continue to operate as individual companies.

Daniel Hofer, Heliswiss head of heavy lifting helicopters and Helog & Partner project manager, international, said: “Together we have set up a distribution and despatch company so all the sales and despatch go through one office. We now have one agent for Europe and that’s Helog & Partner. Each company has its own Helog & Partner department.

“Recently we [Heliswiss] flew a client to Hamburg and Helog made the same trip four days later, so this is what we want to combine to offer better prices to the clients,” he added.

Helog & Partner will be operating the larger helicopters, which will mainly be used for aerial work around Europe. “It’s only for the big helicopters – anything which is bigger than the AS 350 B3,” said Hofer.

“Skiing is a big business in Switzerland, Austria and the Alps in France and we can assist with the assembly work for ski lifts, chair lifts, cranes and telecommunications antennae.”

Heliswiss also operates two AS 350 B3s, an AS 350 B2 and three JetRangers as charter helicopters. “We fly all the way up to Aberdeen, to Norway and the Czech Republic,” said Hofer.

“We do a lot of charter in the winter time for winter sports, and travellers from St Mauritz, for example, come along for Heliski trips around Switzerland.

“The normal charter business is not going up very much – the problem in Switzerland is that everything is so well organised by road and train, so people don’t go by aeroplane so often. In the future, we’re aiming to make less ferry flights and more transports,” he concluded.