LEONARDO HELICOPTERS: Inventive Leonardo Develops New Capability

The blades are turning at Leonardo. In the past two years, while others have issued maydays, Leonardo has continued on a high-flying journey, proving its strength and stability, making the most of Covid-turbulence to speed ahead as it aims for global leading status in the aviation and aerospace industries.

Famed for the manufacture of safe and reliable aircraft, Leonardo Helicopters (Leonardo) has a long history with a cutting-edge product portfolio. At the heart of this is the AW139, a multiengine passenger chopper, which has now notched up more than three million flying hours. The company has sold more than 1200 worldwide and commands 40% of the market.

But this is just one part of the wider global business which has a goal of accelerating the technology evolution, investing heavily in innovation and development. Active across multiple sectors, Leonardo invents – pushing boundaries and quickly gliding into new spaces with lofty digital ideas.

“What sets us apart is innovation,” SVP Commercial Market Development, Paul de Jonge tells Energy Focus. “We put money into making aircraft better than what we have today while developing future solutions. We have invested well in the 139, 169 and 189, which is now the Leonardo family of aircraft. We started 20 years ago and there is no such standard available elsewhere.

“We try to sell a solution – a capability,” he smiles. “That comprises of a helicopter, of course, but also the support services around that including training and logistical networks that make the aircraft effective for our customers.”

DIGITISATION

The economic challenges of recent years have altered business strategies for even the most powerful international companies, and Leonardo has been no exception. Utilising the deep knowledge of its people and the powerful performance of its product range, the organisation has become a local partner for clients, but remaining globally present with both military and civilian offerings. Recently, the company opened new centres in Italy, the UK, South Africa, and Brazil. Further growth is on the horizon as the company broadens its already solid digital strategy.

“How can we digitise the process around building a helicopter, through to how we can deliver helicopters digitally, and then how we can serve our customers more effectively by transmitting data,” questions de Jonge. “That includes inflight data to the ground, and also how that data is elaborated on the ground within our customer’s own systems. There is a need for data and information to be immediate and we need to know the status of the aircraft at any time. That translates through to how we train people. In the past, we have asked people to come to our centres, but we can digitise that and deliver courses at home before they come to the site to receive hands-on training.”

With pilots and operators relying on recurring technical and practical training from manufacturers more than any other form of skills development, the ability for Leonardo to reach people has become critical. With the world closed during the pandemic, digitisation of this process was quickly adopted and, as a technology innovator, Leonardo thrived.

“We are looking to digitise to make it more effective and more accessible. If we can increase accessibility then we can increase safety around how operators fly and use the aircraft,” de Jonge states, confirming a digital-first approach for both civilian and military segments.

“This is a fundamental part of how we want to position ourselves as a global manufacturer.

Whatever we do in terms of digital solutions, we offer for all parts of the business,” he adds. “Of course, military contracts have certain security frameworks through which we have to operate. In general, military work has been important and will become more important for us. This is partly because we have products that are competitive in their environments – military customers are often looking for dual use machines, that are civil-based but military adapted.”

With passenger services diving during periods of lockdown over 2020 and 2021, Leonardo filled extra capacity with additional work from military and defence clients. Governments from around the world have been engaged with the famous Italian business, often for decades.

“We became even stronger following the Covid period and we did not expect that,” admits de Jonge. “We have had two very good years and that is due partly to the products we have and the way we managed our customer base. We mitigated the retraction in the civil market by increasing our work in the military space with our customers including European and American governments. Passenger services have picked up again, and point-to-point travel services are coming back and growing again.

“We came out of Covid much more efficient as people learned quickly to work in a digital way. Two or three years ago, video conferencing was absolutely not the way we would communicate but it has become the norm and we are much more efficient – in my department alone, we have reduced travel by 40%,” he adds.

DEVELOPMENT

Globally, the helicopter market was valued at US$45.2 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to US$74.5 billion by the end of the decade – CAGR of 6.24%. This growth provides opportunities for established players in the market, and demonstrates the enthusiasm from government, corporate, and private customers to embrace alternate forms of travel. Innovation around cleaner, greener, smaller, and more efficient systems is also high on the agenda for many, and point-to-point travel has become popular for those that are lucky enough to afford it as they looked for options to travel without crowds during the pandemic.

But in the energy market, helicopter transport has always been the required method. Moving teams to and from oil and gas platforms, or wind farms, and being able to safely unload and return to shore quickly is essential. In the UK North Sea, increased activity on rigs, in an effort to localise oil and gas production and end reliability on Russia, has seen chopper flights increase by 5% y-o-y since Jan 2020. For Leonardo, opportunities are plentiful but de Jonge highlights two key focus areas under development right now.

“In the past, we have stayed away from the single engine market. We believe there remains major opportunity in the market where we are already a leader, not necessarily in deliveries, but in value. However, we have made a decision to enter the single engine market with the acquisition of Kopter and the AW09.”

In 2021, Leonardo acquired the Kopter Group, a Swiss manufacturer, rebranding its single-engine SH09 as the AW09. The goal here is to bring a new standard of excellence to the single-engine market while delivering further choice for clients.

“This will result in direct competition with the 125 and the 130 where there has not been any new design in the past 30 years. We want to put something into the market that is, from a design perspective, newer, safer and more effective,” de Jonge says.

If the Leonardo success of the twin-engine market can be realised in the single-engine market, where values are smaller but volumes are larger, the sky is the limit for this ambitious organisation.

“If we have success and the aircraft does what we expect it to then we believe we can become number one in terms of value and number one in terms of delivery in the world,” smiles de Jonge.

Tiltrotor technology is also under development at Leonardo, with the company’s first flight from a production aircraft achieved in October 2022. Designed to redefine a range of commercial and public services, the AW609 was tested for the first time in Philadelphia. Now, the AW609 has more than 2000 flight hours in the US and Italy, and is expected to be rolled out for a range of clients thanks to its speed at providing point-to-point transport. From business travel to transfer to remote locations, the AW609 can transport nine passengers over a long range. Agreements have been signed with clients, and the AW609 flight simulator in Philadelphia is in full use as Leonardo supports customers with training and support packages. Initial expectations are for the AW609 to be used for government and military jobs, including SAR, special ops and border patrol, but use in the energy sector is not ruled out thanks to the aircraft’s ability to take off and land in confined spaces, and its capacity to operate far offshore.

“You have to be smart in how you design and build technology, and how you deploy aircraft like this as it is not the same as the traditional,” says de Jonge, adding that the company is convinced, more than ever, that this aircraft will revolutionise point-to-point connections and other air operations, providing a major contribution as the use of air space evolves further.

In the military space, Leonardo has strong heritage and continues to innovate with investment into unmanned assets. After initial publicity in 2017, the AWHero, a Leonardo platform, has come a long way and was, in 2021, awarded the world’s first military certification for a rotary uncrewed aerial system (RUAS) by Italy’s DAAA (Direzione degli Armamenti Aeronautici e per l’Aeronavigabilità), Directorate for Air Armaments and Airworthiness. In the 200kg class, AWHero is feature-packed with platforms, sensors, mission systems, control stations, and offers customers a certified low risk, highly effective, fully integrated capability. Duties can include disaster relief, environmental monitoring, firefighting, and pipeline or powerline monitoring, and the system is operated from a Ground Control Station (GCS), complying with NATO STANAG-4586 standards.

“The 609, the AWHero, and the Kopter are the three products we are developing for the future. Within those products, we have a number of themes that are important for the industry around sustainability, hybridisation, electrification, and other synthetic fuels. We want to grow here and we are pushing for innovation so that we can contribute to the overall umbrella around safety,” confirms de Jonge.

PEOPLE

Despite its ever-growing product range, the engine of the entire Leonardo business is its people. This driving force of 12,000 people around the world is the fuel of innovation and the accelerator of change. Without the industry’s best people, a core pillar of the Leonardo growth strategy ‘mastering the new’, would be simply unachievable, and de Jonge explains that the company expends significant energy obtaining and securing great talent.

“Everything comes together when you have the right people,” he beams. “That is our big challenge – how we can hire the right people and keep the right people on board so that the company can grow in the years to come.”

Hiring for existing vacancies is tough – the level of knowledge and expertise required to satisfy demanding clients is high. But predicting future trends in the market, and being proactive in a strategy to drive those trends is a very challenging recruitment environment.

“It is absolutely not easy, and tracking people to grow and develop while keeping them on board is vital. We have to remain attractive when compared with other international aviation companies in Italy and around the world. We want to be international in our business and this is the case at the Kopter facility in Switzerland where we have more than 30 nationalities working on a development programme that will become a product.

“Our success comes from a combination of innovation, how we become more sustainable, and how we develop quality people – I cannot say enough about the importance of this. These three elements are fundamental around how we move forward in the future,” states de Jonge.

SERVICE CEILING?

Currently, Leonardo’s helicopters are used in more than 150 countries and assist in almost all types of aviation mission. The range is respected, and complementary solutions are much sought after, but there is so much more for the company to do and de Jonge is excited about the journey.

“We recently opened a new facility in Brazil and that is a big facility to support the local market,” he says. “We recently opened a new maintenance facility in South Africa where we acquired a company to support all of southern Africa. We added more simulators to our main facility outside of Italy, in the USA, for the 169 and 609 which is the cornerstone for the development of aircraft. There will be more and we are busy planning for a number of developments in the coming years.”

Whether it’s technology, hardware, people, or markets, there is significant scope for Leonardo to rise higher as it searches for fresh opportunities.

“We are strong Europe and the US, but we see the US as a strong growth market thanks to the 169 and 09 as a single-engine offering. We see the US military market as one with major opportunity. We see Japan, Australia, the UK are markets in which we are growing across all segments – military, oil and gas, private transport, and law enforcement,” suggests de Jonge, hinting at further internationalisation of the company.

Like its namesake, this is a business at the very heart of the industry, solving problems through innovation and invention. A museum sits on the site of the Leonardo family villa close to Milan Malpensa Airport, housing historical information about the growth of the AgustaWestland business before its merge into Leonardo in 2016.

This is more than a company hungry for profits. Leonardo Helicopters grows, builds, and flies the industry high, lifting customers and contributors with it.

“We innovate. We provide solutions for our customers,” de Jonge concludes. “We listen to the market and we transform internally to ensure we deliver on what the market wants and what the future trends will be.”

Ever-evolving, Leonardo is a trusted technology partner, and as long as it can innovate and deliver then there is no challenge too big for this global powerhouse as it accelerates the technology evolution.