Bond Aviation Group was a British helicopter operator based at

Gloucestershire Airport Gloucestershire Airport , formerly Staverton Airport, is a small airport at Churchdown, England. It lies west of Cheltenham, near the city of Gloucester and close to the M5 motorway. Its operator claims it to be Gloucestershire's largest ge ...

, Staverton. It was purchased by

Babcock International Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

in 2014. It incorporated Bond Air Services, now renamed

Babcock Mission Critical Services Onshore Babcock Mission Critical Services Onshore, formerly Bond Air Services (Bond Aviation Group), is an operator of air ambulance, police, and offshore windfarm helicopters in the UK. Babcock operates a mixed fleet of light twin-engine helicopters cu ...

, and Bond Offshore Helicopters, now renamed

Babcock Mission Critical Services Offshore Offshore Helicopter Services (OHS) (known as Bond Offshore Helicopters until April 2016) is a British helicopter operator, specialising in providing offshore helicopter transportation services to North Sea and Irish Sea oil and gas platforms. C ...

. Both companies held a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority Type B Operating Licence, and they were permitted to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with less than 20 seats. Bond mainly operated

Eurocopter Airbus Helicopters SAS (formerly Eurocopter Group) is the helicopter manufacturing division of Airbus. It is the largest in the industry in terms of revenues and turbine helicopter deliveries. Its head office is located at Marseille Provence Ai ...

aircraft.

History

Founded in 1961 under the name of Management Aviation Limited, the company first entered the offshore transport industry in 1974, providing helicopters mainly in support of offshore oil and gas operations. By the late 1990s, Bond operated a fleet of over 200 helicopters. In 1995, the business was merged with Helikopter Service Group of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The group organisation was formed in 1999 when Bond was acquired from Helikopter Service Group. In 2014, the group's parent company, Avincis, was purchased by the Babcock International Group. All UK operations under the Bond name adopted the Babcock name in 2016.

Bond Offshore Helicopters

In 2001, Bond Offshore Helicopters was formed at

Aberdeen Airport Aberdeen International Airport ( gd, Port-adhair Eadar-nàiseanta Obar Dheathain) is an international airport, located in the Dyce suburb of Aberdeen, Scotland, approximately northwest of Aberdeen city centre. A total of just under 3.1 ...

to take advantage of the booming North Sea oil and gas, crew replacement requirement. In 2002, BP awarded Bond Offshore an offshore helicopter transport service contract, worth £120 million, to provide all of their Aberdeen based helicopter support operations. In addition to the oil and gas industry service contract, Bond also operated a Search & Rescue operation in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. The company operated the

Eurocopter Super Puma The Airbus Helicopters H215 (formerly Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma) is a four-bladed, twin-engine, medium-size utility helicopter developed and initially produced by the French aerospace company Aérospatiale. It has been subsequently manufactu ...

AS332L2, Eurocopter 365N3 Dauphin and Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma II. In 2013, four helicopter crewmembers were honoured for their role in the rescue of an oil industry vessel in the North Sea that had been struck by a wave during a storm. In 2016, Bond Offshore Helicopters changed its name to Babcock Mission Critical Services Offshore

Bond Air Services

Bond Air Services was an operator of

air ambulance Air medical services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air transportation, aeroplane or helicopter, to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes. Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and cri ...

and police aviation units in the UK. Using mainly

Eurocopter EC-135 The Eurocopter EC135 (now Airbus Helicopters H135) is a twin-engine civil light utility helicopter produced by Airbus Helicopters (formerly known as Eurocopter). It is capable of flight under instrument flight rules (IFR) and is outfitted with ...

and

MBB Bo 105 The Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105 is a light, twin-engine, multi-purpose helicopter developed by Bölkow of Ottobrunn, West Germany. It was the first light twin-engine helicopter in the world, and the first rotorcraft that could perform a ...

helicopters, they operated from 17 bases around the UK and had two headquarters, Staverton and Glasgow City Heliport. In 2016, Bond Air Services changed its name to Babcock Mission Critical Services Onshore.

References

{{helicopter airlines Airlines established in 1961 Defunct airlines of the United Kingdom Helicopter airlines 1961 establishments in England Transport companies established in 1961 British companies established in 1961