Avincis has chosen Lisbon, Portugal, as the location for a large-scale scheduled maintenance procedure on one of its Italian-based aircraft. The AW139 arrived in Lisbon from Italy and will receive a complete overhaul from the Portuguese technical team.

The company expects to create more work and give more long-term job security to its Portuguese workforce with this initiative. Until now, Avincis in Lisbon has only worked on helicopters from its Portuguese and Spanish fleets. For example, the Spanish firefighting fleet of 10 aircraft is maintained here over the winter months.

The AW139 aircraft, which provides Emergency Medical as well as SAR services from the operator’s Colico base at Lake Como in Italy, will remain in Lisbon for around 10 weeks while the two-yearly inspection is carried out.

For John Boag, Avincis Group CEO, “the project strengthens the investment made in developing Lisbon into a centre of excellence for maintenance and training.” This initiative, he says, confirms that, “Portugal is the right location for us, geographically and in terms of available talent in the labour market.” The company has already created 10 new technical jobs in the last year, “highly specialised labour, which we want to maintain and increase,” he stresses.