Helibras has announced the opening of a new customer support center (CSC) at Atibaia, near the three main airfields of São Paulo. The facility forms part of Eurocopter’s global network and mirrors those established by the company in Hong Kong, Dallas and Marignane (France). Some 75 percent of the Brazilian Eurocopter/Helibras fleet is based in the southeast of Brazil.

With an initial staff of 25, the CSC had a “soft launch” on August 1 and now offers a 365-day on-call service between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. The specialist staff not only take the initial customer calls, but also see them through to the completion of service delivery. There is also an AOG (aircraft on ground) desk. Helibras has engineers located around the country, who are contacted by the CSC to attend to issues in their local region. The center also has field representatives embedded with major customers, including the Brazilian army.

The CSC has a major spares holding, and Helibras has contracted logistics experts Ceva to undertake supply chain management and distribution. A maintenance “tiger team” is also based in São Paulo.

To start, the Atibaia center covers only Brazil, but it is expected that additional South American countries will be covered once the Brazilian operation has been proven. Customers in the northern countries, such as Venezuela and Colombia, will most likely continue to be covered by the Dallas CSC.