Thanks to a strategy of organic growth and acquisitions over the last decade, the Bristow Group’s Bristow Academy has grown into the world’s largest commercial helicopter training organization. While the vast majority of the Bristow Group’s revenues continue to come from its oil and gas production (OGP) helicopter service activities worldwide, Bristow finds its training business expanding, even as other OGP companies are increasingly outsourcing this activity.
Bristow currently operates a mixed fleet of 75 training helicopters, from Robinson R22s to Eurocopter AS355s, across four campuses–three in the U.S. and one in Gloucester, UK. The backbone of the training fleet is 55 Schweizer 300 series. It also operates a pair of heavy-helicopter full-motion simulators, for an S-92A and an EC225, at its Aberdeen, Scotland helicopter base. The Academy’s main base of operations is in Titusville, Fla., home to 55 of its helicopters. System wide the academy employs 160 people, including 60 flight instructors and 10 ground instructors. It flies approximately 4,000 training hours per month and has a typical enrollment of 200 students; it graduated 370 last year. The academy’s operating margin increased from 3.1 percent in 2009 to 8.1 percent in 2010 thanks mainly to Bristow’s aggressive pursuit of higher-priced military and parapublic training contracts, primarily in Colombia and Mexico.
