HI Uplift: Rotortrade highlights pre-owned helis (and hails German car makers)

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by Mike Stones

17 April 2025

Rotortrade's briefing shed light on the global helicopter market.

It was billed as a breakfast meeting. But the mini pastries remained mostly untouched on Rotortrade’s stand at the Verticon trade event in Dallas, Texas last month. Of more interest was the company’s insights on the global helicopter market.

Philippe Lubrano, CEO of Rotortrade wasted no time getting his teeth into the demand/supply imbalance that was shaping the market. Drawing on The Rotortrade Global Helicopter Market Report 2024-2025, Lubrano warned the global civil helicopter shortage is worsening.

Pressures are intensifying as manufacturer’s production constraints and supply chain disruptions show little sign of easing. Those factors, coupled with the pressing need to replace ageing fleets are creating opportunities for the pre-owned market.

Shifting south

At the same time, the focus of market growth is shifting south. While North America and Europe remain dominant, Asia, Africa and Latin America are emerging as key growth markets.

It adds up to a stark conclusion, he tells Helicopter investor. “This year the helicopter industry finds itself at a turning point, with demand far outpacing supply,” he says. “OEM production constraints and rising costs are driving shifting market dynamics. That is making the pre-owned segment more critical than ever. Rotortrade is at the forefront of providing agile solutions to meet these demands through our global network and strategic partnerships.”

One example of that partnership came this week with the news that Rotortrade has been certified to perform maintenance operations on AW139 helicopters. The certification, granted by EASA with the air safety organisation OSAC, became effective last month and enables Rotortrade’s European Maintenance Center in Tallard, in the southern French Alpes to begin work on the twin-engine helicopters. (This follows the launch of Rotortrade’s MRO facility in 2024 and its subsequent approvals to work on both Airbus and Leonardo helicopters).

Speaking after the meeting, Lubrano told me the helicopter industry could learn powerful lessons from other markets. While acknowledging the key difference in scale of operations, he said: “What we [the helicopter industry] can learn from the automotive industry is industrial strategy and integration – its reliability and the ability to increase production without degrading quality.”

The automotive industry is vertically integrating while optimising cost, responsibility, ownership and accountability among the subcontractors, he says.

German automotive industry

“A very good model is the German automotive industry where there is a maturity level and seniority level in the entire chain from the OEM down to the suppliers,” he says. “And when they develop a new model, they contribute. They share the risk. They share the ideas. They share the design.”

It’s also important to inspire the people, to lead them and to work with them, he said. In other industries – such as the French aerospace industry – you have the OEM and all the subcontractors and it’s the OEM who has to “have the back of the subcontractors”, not the other way around, he adds.

Lubrano sees the relationship between the aerospace and automotive industries that began 20 years ago intensifying. “In the early 2000s, you saw a lot of cross-hiring – a lot of chief engineers from the aerospace going to the automotive sector. And a lot of guys from automotive came to the aerospace industry,” he says. “Why? Because everybody understands that transport is going to go in the air.”

Launch of RotorLease

Meanwhile, back at the press conference, the Rotortrade CEO explained the reasoning behind the company’s decision to boost its leasing business with the launch of RotorLease. “We have been doing this for 12 years and we have seen a big demand for helicopter leasing over the past five to six years,” he told me. “And people are really begging for it. So, we could not ignore that – when clients are spending money with you, you have to respect the appetite they have. How can you support the growth of clients if you cannot lease?”

While the new business is expected to start operations in the third quarter of this year, the Rotortrade team is already talking to clients across a range of industry segments. The new business would be happy to complete six to 10 contracts this year, he said. Deals are likely to be across a range of industry segments including oil and gas, emergency medical services (EMS) and utilities.

Appetite for growth

It’s an appetite for growth, Lubrano saw strongly reflected in the Verticon event last month. But unlike the optimism of 2014, Lubrano thinks this time, it is backed by new discipline.

“There is more maturity now,” he said. “Look at the OEMs and the number of new models that are coming on the market – you don’t come up with a new model if you don’t believe there is a market for it. So yes, optimism but based on growth and discipline.”

Meeting over, the lonely plate of pastries, still mostly intact, beckoned to me. I slyly slipped a pain au chocolat into my pocket on the way out.

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