Milestone Becomes Largest S-92 Fleet Owner

GE Capital Aviation Services unit Milestone Aviation Group recently completed the purchase and leaseback of four Sikorsky S-92 helicopters, boosting the company's owned and financed portfolio of S-92s to over 95—more than one-third of the total S-92 fleet. Milestone is now the owner of the largest S-92 fleet in the world.

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Milestone CEO Daniel Rosenthal said Sikorsky “has demonstrated a focus on keeping these aircraft competitive.” In recent years the offshore industry has shifted its preference to medium and super-medium helicopters, as opposed to large helicopters such as the S-92. However, used S-92s remain price competitive for many offshore applications, and others have been shifted to search-and-rescue missions, where the S-92 is proving increasingly popular.

Sikorsky has taken significant actions in recent years to reduce the cost of S-92 operation, such as reducing AOG turnaround time by two-thirds, better forward stocking of parts, adding authorized service centers, increasing the intervals between major inspections, adding real-time health usage and monitoring and integrating it with the maintenance management system, providing interactive technical manuals, and offering the Sikorsky360 customer portal to speed maintenance recommendations and parts ordering.