An Interview with Kopter CEO Andreas Löwenstein

A year ago, beset by delays in development of its SH09 light-medium single-engine utility helicopter, startup company Marenco Swisshelicopter replaced founder Martin Stucki as CEO with Andreas Löwenstein, a former Eurocopter senior executive. Within a few months, he brought in almost an entirely new team of C-level leaders, largely from Airbus Helicopters and Leonardo.

The company (Booth N4615) sought to reaffirm its stability in early February, rebranding as Kopter Group while christening a new headquarters and production facilities near Zurich.

Rick Adams spoke with Löwenstein about the changes and Kopter’s prospects for breaking into a crowded market.

AIN: When you joined the company, what was your initial objective?

Löwenstein: My big challenge for 2017 was to transform in very short term this totally engineering-minded company into a helicopter manufacturer. You do not certify the aircraft; you certify a system with product support, pilot training, documentation, sustainability, [and] traceability of components. We had to bring helicopter manufacturing experience into the company—build a sales team, build supply chain, build all the facets you need in order to produce. We now have a really experienced team who have done all their life helicopter manufacturing.

To complete the picture, last year we recruited 112 people, which is a lot for a tiny company like ours. If our business case reaches the level we expect, direct employment in the company will be close to 1,000 people. We have every day a lot of candidates, and many of them are outstanding. We have young engineers with huge responsibilities they would never have in a big organization. You can show here that you have something in the gut. It’s a little bit like the Google of helicopters.

AIN: What advantages do you think Kopter has as a start-up?

Löwenstein: We are a small team that is extremely reactive. One of the reasons I came here is we can make a decision within hours, not months. We can do our work for between a third and a quarter of the cost of big organizations.

We are the perfect example of the globalized industry. We have 17 nationalities from all parts of the world: the U.S., Mexico, all over Europe, Russia, China, Australia, and Canada. This combination makes us unique.

AIN: Why does the market need a new helicopter?

Löwenstein: This is one of the market segments in which actually not much has happened in the last 20, 25 years. If you know what the market is basically requesting, you then have a real opportunity to get a grip on a significant part of the market. You cannot go frontally against the incumbents; you have to be a little bit more agile, betting on what exactly the market is missing today.

AIN: So what does the SH09 offer that’s missing in its class?

Löwenstein: We are certified to EASA 2014 standards, which means a major leap in terms of crashworthiness. We will have dual hydraulic systems, redundant double-channel FADEC, redundant electrical systems. The whole will be digital architecture, which allows operators to better know where and how the aircraft is aging. You can basically do prevention on the aircraft, which is not possible on older models.

Due to the use of new materials, we can architect the aircraft in a different way. We have a cabin…of a much bigger aircraft. We have a very potent engine, which will give this aircraft outstanding high and hot capabilities. You will find a totally different economic model because you have more passengers onboard. You can do EMS, particularly in the U.S., with an aircraft that has a single-engine cost but can perform a twin-engine mission.

AIN: Switzerland is known as a challenging environment for helicopters. Has this locale enhanced development?

Löwenstein: I think we are well placed in Switzerland to know to do things pragmatically and with engineering intelligence. We have shaped our mission profile to the most demanding missions. People in Switzerland know what it means to fly in extremely adverse conditions – high flying in winter time in snow conditions, flying with winds, and flying close to the mountainside. We are, in-house, describing our helicopter as a flying Swiss pocket knife.

AIN: The SH09 was conceived in 2002 and has managed to keep going through a severe helicopter market slump. Clearly, your investor believes in this new product.

Löwenstein: I think we have an outstanding investor [Russian billionaire lawyer and banker Alexander Mamut] who has been constantly financing this program since 2009. We have today spent more than $250 million on this program. We have a workforce of more than 250 people on the payroll, most of them highly skilled engineers, so this is consuming a lot of cash. When you go into aeronautical adventures you cannot expect, as an investor, to have a payback of five years. By definition, aeronautics is always a long-term investment, somewhere in the window between 10 and 15 years.

AIN: Your new brand name is Kopter with a K. What was the rationale for this choice?

Löwenstein: The name Kopter is very different from Marenco Swisshelicopter. The former name was too complex, too long, and too burdened equally with personal histories. What we wanted with this name change is that we mark the next step, which means we are no longer an engineering company, we are no longer a local company. We can sustain only if we are globally visible and globally understood and that people see immediately that this is a helicopter manufacturer.