Bell Helicopter expanded its customer-support capabilities with the acquisition of maintenance-tracking software company Skybooks in mid-January. Skybooks is an online system that tracks maintenance, flight operations, expenses and pilot currency and stores archived aircraft logbooks as well as maintains electronic logbook records.
While Skybooks is useful for the helicopter industry, especially for tracking the many life-limited parts that helicopters use, the system is designed for any type of aircraft operation, including airlines, corporate flight departments, repair stations and charter companies. Aircraft buyers and sellers can use Skybooks to view aircraft records without having to travel to the aircraft’s location, and financial institutions can access Skybooks records remotely as well.
The Skybooks acquisition adds capability to Bell’s customer support organization, according to Bell president and CEO Richard Millman, and will allow Bell to provide services to a wider part of the aviation industry.