Qatar's Gulf Helicopters Company (GHC) has signed a contract with ITP Aero to provide comprehensive support for its fleet of General Electric CT7-2E1 and CT7-8A engines that are flown in its Leonardo AW189 and Sikorsky S-92 helicopters. The contract spans five years and the work will be carried out at ITP Aero's Albacete and Ajalvir (Madrid) facilities in Spain.

The contract includes ITP Aero's engine condition trend monitoring (ECTM), a technology based on big data analysis that offers important results in predictive engine maintenance. ECTM diagnoses engine health based on data extraction and analysis, anticipating future technical issues and scheduling of precise maintenance. This will allow ITP Aero and GHC to define the most appropriate moment to carry out preventative maintenance, which in turn will prevent issues of a larger scale that would create a higher outlay, thus optimising maintenance costs.

In addition to ECTM, the contract also includes engine repair, fleet engineering activities and a mobile repair team for all GHC's helicopter fleet around the world.

ITP head of MRO Pablo Fuentes comments: “This new collaboration with Gulf Helicopters showcases the great results our ECTM technology is achieving. This agreement entails us applying ECTM to AW189 helicopters with GE CT7-2E1 engines for the first time, in addition to the S-92, allowing both operator and engine repair shop to identify future engine operation issues and provide logistics solutions to keep fleet operability and at the same time optimising maintenance costs.”

Gulf Helicopters is a subsidiary of Gulf International Services, Q.S.C. The company has provided helicopter services since 1970 and operates with companies throughout the Middle East, India, North Africa and Europe.