Russian Helicopters demonstrates its latest civil aircraft to Thai operators at U-Tapao
Within its demonstration tour of Mi-171A2 and Ansat aircraft across Southeast Asia, Russian Helicopters – part of the Rostec state corporation – has presented its newest civil helicopters to potential customers in Thailand.
Demo flights of the Russian aircraft were conducted on Monday at the U-Tapao airfield in Rayong province.
In the course of the presentation, Rostec’s specialists told Thai operators about the key advantages of its Mi-171A2 and Ansat helicopters, and about their after-sales service system.
“The holding company is proactively strengthening business relations with commercial and public-sector customers from Thailand. By the end of the year, we are going to make the first supply of Ka-32А11VC helicopters to this country.
“Potential operators are also interested in Ansat and Mi-8/17-type helicopters in various modifications. Therefore, this demonstration of our aircraft is especially relevant here,” said Andrey Boginsky, chief executive officer of Russian Helicopters.
Russian helicopters are highly praised by public-sector and commercial customers in Southeast Asia, with the medium-sized, multipurpose Mi-17V-5 already successfully operated in Thailand, he said.
In addition, the holding company is working to establish a maintenance centre in the Kingdom.
“In February 2018, we signed the memorandum of intent with Datagate. Assistance in the organisation of a centre for maintenance of Russian-built helicopters in Thailand is among the cooperation areas listed in that document. It is expected that this centre will provide any types of routine maintenance and repair, troubleshooting and component replacement,” the CEO added.
