Four years after JSSI (Booth 5016) decided to expand its presence in the helicopter arena, the hourly cost maintenance program provider has programs running a range of civil helicopters. And, Ray Weiser, senior director helicopter Services at JSSI who joined the firm to help build a specialized team focused on the rotorcraft market, said the helicopter market in South America is rebounding.

“Just this year alone, we've enrolled more helicopters in the first six months of the year than we did last year,” Weiser said. “And last year was our best year ever. Year-over-year growth has improved each year.”

JSSI has long served helicopter operators, but more on a one-off basis. Four years ago, the company made the strategic decision to focus on the helicopter market. The company started slowly, analyzing existing programs and future program needs, starting with light singles and light twins. “The light [sector] has been the vast majority of the number of helicopters in the world,” he said. Once JSSI had a solid base, it moved into the medium market. The company didn’t initially focus on heavier helicopters, he said, because, “that was just as oil-and-gas slowdown, so we waited for that market rebound.”

About 24 months ago, though, JSSI began to add the larger platforms, and the timing worked well—playing into the strong expansion of its business. By the middle of 2017, JSSI offered, in some capacity, programs for 75 helicopter models. In fact, during last year’s LABACE, JSSI announced it had added a range of Sikorsky S-76s to its program offering and enrolled of an S-92 customer. “For the last four years we’ve seen nice growth,” he said.

Initially, JSSI secured smaller operators, those with one to five aircraft. But in the past couple of years, large-fleet customers have begun to come on board. During the last 18 months, Weiser added, “That's probably where our biggest successes have come.”

It started with a couple of well-known operators. “Once we did that, the word leaked out,” he said. “They tend to like the quality of a program and the flexibility,” he said, noting that the programs are different from the traditional OEM programs because they can transfer the maintenance management across a range of platforms, and across the airframe, avionics, and engines.

As JSSI has built relationships with the operators, its collaboration with the airframers has increased along with it, Weiser said. At least two of the major helicopter manufacturers have asked JSSI to develop programs for some of their models. “We’ve made significant progress with the OEMs. That’s probably the thing I am most pleased about over the last 24 months,” he said.

The timing of this has come not only as oil-and-gas market has begun to turn around, which Weiser notes is a key market in South America, but in other sectors in the region as well. “It’s always a shot in the arm for industry when we see activity in other markets,” he said. Brazil, in particular, has seen renewed interest in the personal aircraft sector, while law enforcement is turning over fleets in countries such as Chile and Colombia, providing new opportunities for JSSI.

During this year’s LABACE, Weiser anticipates a push with its light and medium twin platforms for the personal flying market in Brazil. The company has revamped its programs to tailor them more toward a market that is much more hands-on and intensive in the maintenance arena, he added.