Norsk Helikopterservice AS (NHS) is an offshore

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

based at

Stavanger Airport, Sola Stavanger Airport ( no, Stavanger lufthavn; ), commonly just known as Sola, is an international airport located in Rogaland county, Norway. The airport is located southwest of the centre of the city of Stavanger inside the neighboring munici ...

Sola Sola is a municipality and a Seaside resort in Rogaland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Jæren. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Solakrossen. Other villages include Tananger, Hålandsm ...

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 ...

. It operates a fleet of

Sikorsky S-92 The Sikorsky S-92 is an American twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1 ...

flying services to offshore

oil platform An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...

s for oil companies. The company was incorporated in 2009 and commenced operations in 2012. Babcock International owns a majority of the company.

History

Norsk Helikopterservice was the brainchild of Bjørn Veum Seljevold. At the age of 54, he was working as a heavy helicopter inspector for the

Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority ( no, Luftfartstilsynet) is the Norwegian inspectorate responsible for civil aviation in Norway. It is subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications. Its head office is located in Bodø ...

. His background was helicopter pilot and having started a helicopter operating company in the United States. He saw that the offshore market was split between

Helikopter Service CHC Helikopter Service, previously CHC Norway, CHC Helikopter Service and Helikopter Service is the Norwegian division of CHC Helicopter Corporation. The airline was an independent company until 1999. It operates primarily to oil platforms on ...

and

Norsk Helikopter Bristow Norway AS (formerly Norsk Helikopter) is a Norway, Norwegian helicopter company that transports crew to oil platform, oil installations in the North Sea. It has headquarters in Stavanger and has additional operations out of Bergen, Norway ...

(later Bristow Norway). He therefore started working on plans to found his own offshore helicopter company. His aim was to capture about twenty to twenty-five percent of the market, which he estimated would total about fifty aircraft. The company was incorporated in 2009. It "borrowed" its name from that of its two main competitors, after the company discovered that they had not properly protected their trademarks. The company decided to establish its head office and main base at Stavanger Airport, Sola, due to it being a national center for helicopter traffic and ease of access to other oil cities. Norsk Helikopterservice bought the hangar formerly built to house

Braathens Helikopter Braathens Helikopter A/S was a Norwegian helicopter airline based at Stavanger Airport and Bergen Airport. It used a fleet of seven Aérospatiale Super Pumas to serve offshore oil platforms in the North Sea. The customers were Amoco, BP, Nors ...

. It took several years to get the company in shape to commence operations. The first major hurdle was financing. This resulted with an agreement with

Bond Offshore Helicopters 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 ...

based in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Scotland, and World Helicopters Norway, where the latter received sixty-fiver percent of the shares. This company was part of the Avincis group. The remaining thirty percent were held by Norwegian investors, including many of the key employees.Olsen-Hagen: 95 Operations commenced on 14 June 2012, with an

AgustaWestland AW139 The AgustaWestland AW139 is a medium-lift twin-engined helicopter developed and produced by the Anglo-Italian helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland, later wholly owned by Leonardo S.p.A. It is marketed at several different roles, including V ...

leased from Bond and operated with ''ad hoc'' flights on the British sector. A joint order between Bond and NHS was made for sixteen Sikorsky S-92A helicopters, eight to each company. The first two were delivered to NHS in February 2013, and the original order was scheduled to run until 2017. The aircraft were contracted to Bond, who at the time had their fleet of Eurocopter EC225 Super Pumas grounded. The two S-92s were based at Aberdeen Airport and crewed by NHS employees.Olsen-Hagen: 97

References

Bibliography

* {{Helicopter airlines Airlines of Norway Helicopter airlines Airlines established in 2009 2009 establishments in Norway Companies based in Sola, Norway