Leonardo Reveals Luxury Brand Agusta

Leonardo recently unveiled the Agusta branding of its AW line of VIP and corporate helicopters in Dubai. This announcement followed the arrival of the company’s AW609 AC4 civil tiltrotor there. The rotorcraft is on display at Falcon Aviation Services at Casa Agusta, an upscale urban heliport terminal concept that can be replicated in multiple markets and is modular and easily transportable.

The company said the Casa Agusta concept “will support the development of a network of point-to-point connections for urban transfers and connections between cities while meeting the growing demands for sustainable and modern vertical lift mobility." It also offers greater access to urban areas and provides VIP and charter passengers “levels of service typically available in larger private airport facilities far from downtown and urban areas.”

The launch of the Agusta brand follows a similar move by Airbus when it launched Airbus Corporate Helicopters (ACH) in 2017. It also draws on the heritage of the Agusta name from an aviation company formed in Italy in 1923 by Giovanni Agusta. That company began producing helicopters under license from other OEMs, most notably Bell, in 1952, and began developing its own indigenous civil helicopter, the Agusta A109 light twin, in the late 1960s. It then merged with Britain’s Westland Helicopters in 2000 to form AgustaWestland, later rebranded Leonardo Helicopters in 2017, a nod to 15th- and 16th-century Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, who is widely credited with devising the first concept for the helicopter.