Dublin Opinion

From Jane’s Defence Weekly, 29 September 2010 (sub required):

New Eurocopter company to support business in tough locations

Eurocopter is planning to set up a new company to look after the company’s products and staff in challenging, less secure areas of the world by the end of the year.

Senior vice-president of human relations, Michel Sesques told Jane’s that the new company will be called Eurocopter International Services and will be based in Ireland.

He explained that the company has a number of mostly ex-military ‘Tech Rep’ (technical representative) teams who specialise in working in unstable or potentially dangerous areas, but also that Eurocopter outsourced work to third-party insurance firms. “These are the guys you call if a helicopter goes down in the jungle in Columbia,” he said.

Eurocopter also deploys personnel into war zones and has three staff in Afghanistan helping to support the three French Tigre HAP attack helicopters in theatre.

It is not just people who need to be protected. Vice-president of the company’s existing after-sales customer support organisation, Trevor Sharples, said that Eurocopter guarantees to get spare parts anywhere in the world in 48 hours. He added that this part of the business accounts for 35 per cent of Eurocopter’s overall revenue “and is profitable too”.

The new division will draw together existing staff with a number of new hires under the new umbrella. Sesques told Jane’s that it “should start at the end of this year to provide global coverage for all of Eurocopter’s international presence”.

The decision to base the company in Ireland was “not financial or tax-based. It is a neutral base”, he stated.

(Nick Brown Jane’s Land Desk Editor, London)

Eurocopter International Services is located at 6 George’s dock, Dublin 1, and has nineteen employees.

It states on its website that is is a “subsidiary dedicated to the management of long term missions of technical assistance.”

The journal Defence Review Asia has an interesting article on Eurocopter and its activities in Afghanistan:

In mid-November [2011], Defence Review Asia had the rare opportunity to spend time with the helicopter battalion ‘Mousquetaire 5’ stationed at the international base adjacent to Kabul airport. In a visit organized by Eurocopter and with the support of the French Defense Ministry [my emphasis], we were fully involved in helicopter activities including mission planning, security briefings, flights, maintenance activities and extensive discussions with pilots, gunners and crewmembers.

Eurocopter, remember, said that it picked Ireland not for the tax breaks but because it’s a neutral country - presumably it organised a tour of Afghanistan with the French Defence Ministry for the same reason.

The full article is available on its site (here):