Helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft sales broker Gualter Helicopteros is labeling 2018 as “a year of transition” as regards the used-aircraft sales landscape for itself and its LABACE co-exhibitor TAG Flight Solutions.

Nathalia Prata, who provides commercial assistance to Gualter Helicopteros CEO Gualter Pizzi, told AIN that, thus far in 2018, her own company and TAG Flight Solutions see 2017 as having been “a bit better” for sales of used helicopters and fixed-wing private and bizav aircraft than this year.

Prata said Gualter believes 2019 could prove a stronger year than 2018, if—as is expected—the Brazilian economy stabilizes in the wake of the country’s forthcoming presidential election. However, she said that “in general, the market is not so good for new helicopters, because of the dollar exchange rate” against the Brazilian real. As of July 27, the Brazilian real was trading at a spot rate of about 3.71 to the U.S. dollar.

Last year Gualter—which brokers sales only of used helicopters and used fixed-wing aircraft—handled 25 helicopters. By the end of July this year, it had handled 10, so Prata thinks it likely that by the end of the year it will have been able to sell about 20 helicopters in all in 2018. Most of the helicopter sales Gualter has brokered this year have involved Robinson R44s, according to Prata, who said, “There are a lot in the country.” She said Robinson helicopter models represent her company’s best-selling lines: “I have for sale more than 40; they are the first helicopters for most owners in Brazil.”

Prata said Brazilian owners particularly prefer the Robinson R66 over the competing Bell 206 JetRanger. However, Gualter—whose CEO has 30 years of helicopter-sales experience—has handled sales of many different helicopter models. Among them have been Leonardo/AgustaWestland types, Bells, Eurocopter/Airbus Helicopters models, and MD Helicopters. Last year Gualter brokered sales of three Bell helicopters, two JetRangers and a Bell 407, a type she said, “is very popular in Brazil.”

While at present Gualter holds the specifications and sales details of 318 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in its sales database, Prata said only 170 of them on the Brazilian register are available for sale this year. (Some of the fixed-wing aircraft are available through TAG Flight Solutions, some through Gualter Helicopteros.)

Approximately 70 percent of the aircraft in the Gualter sales database are helicopters. Most of the fixed-wing aircraft for which the Gualter Helicopteros database holds sales details are Beechcraft, Cessna, and Embraer types: they are “popular airplanes, both jet and single-engine” types, according to Prata.

Not surprisingly, she said the bulk of the market in Brazil for used helicopters is located in the southeastern states of Saõ Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, respectively the nation’s most populous and third-most populous states. Gualter Helicopteros makes most of its sales in the southern part of the country: “Most of the sales we do are in Saõ Paulo, Minas Gerais [Brazil’s second-most populous state], Rio and Paraná,” Brazil’s sixth-most populous state, she said.

However, “We also sell a few in the north,” particularly in the states of Alagoas and Bahia, said Prata, adding: “We also have some sales in Porto Alegre [the capital of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s fifth-most populous state], but the market there is a little bit slow. It’s a very small market for helicopters.”

While TAG Flight Solutions is also experiencing soft used-aircraft market conditions in Brazil this year, Prata noted that used-aircraft sales represent just one of several aviation business activities in which the larger company is involved. Two of these, its parts and hangarage businesses, are probably less affected in general by Brazil’s present economic uncertainty than are its sales and brokerage of used aircraft and its two-way importing and exporting of new aircraft between Brazil and the U. S.

TAG Flight Solutions owns a large hangar at Campo de Marte Airport in Saõ Paulo’s Santana district, an airport Prata described as “the main helicopter airport and the most important airport for executive aviation in Brazil.” The company also owns hangars at two airports in Florida, one of which is Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, where its main office in the U.S. is located.

At the end of July, Gualter Helicopteros wasn’t yet certain which for-sale helicopters it would be showing at LABACE on behalf of their private owners, because it hadn’t yet received permission from the owners to display the aircraft. However, Prata thought it likely Gualter would bring “one or two R66s and two AS350s” to the show. Additionally, she said, the company’s co-exhibitor TAG Flight Solutions is displaying a Cessna Citation CJ1, Beechcraft Baron, a King Air, and two Robinson R44s at LABACE.