NH Industries chief reports strong customer interest in buying ex-Norwegian NH90s
European consortium is discussing potential sale of “almost brand-new” assets with multiple nations.
NH Industries (NHI) has reported strong interest from potential customers for a batch of 14 NH90 maritime helicopters previously operated by the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
Oslo withdrew its entire fleet of the 11t-class rotorcraft from use after a long-running dispute with NHI over the type’s operational performance and poor availability. The parties reached an out of court settlement earlier this year, with the industrial consortium paying €375 million ($420 million) in a deal via which it took ownership of the grounded assets.
“We bought back not only the helicopters but also the parts which were stored in Norway,” says NHI chief executive Axel Aloccio. The surplus NFH-model rotorcraft are now being stored at an Airbus facility in Norway “while we wait to find [them] a new home”, he adds.
Norway had acquired eight NH90s configured for coastguard duties, plus six anti-submarine warfare (ASW)-roled examples.
“We are offering those helicopters to many customers in the world, very often those customers who we were discussing for brand-new NFH,” Aloccio says. “Depending on their budget constraints, we also are offering them the Norwegian NFH, because they are secondhand, and much cheaper.
“We have a vast amount of prospects and leads for those aircraft,” he says. “We are hopeful that we will sell them to one or two customers, as we have 14 helicopters altogether.”
Aloccio says the surplus Norwegian aircraft have logged an average of only around 500 flight hours, adding: “For those who buy those helicopters they will make a very good deal, because they are almost brand-new.”
In addition to marketing the used rotorcraft, NHI is also offering to provide a comprehensive support package for at least the first five years of operation.
Beyond seeking new takers for those rotorcraft, NHI also is pursuing potential sales of new-build examples.
“There are plenty of campaigns ongoing – we are discussing with customers in the Middle East, in Asia and in Europe,” Aloccio said during Airbus Helicopters’ MDays event near Marseille on 7 October. “There is interest in the NH90 pretty much everywhere in the world.”
He notes that “The NFH particularly is the platform that attracts a lot of interest because of its ASW capabilities, which are quite unique. But we see also that the TTH [tactical transport helicopter] has some attractiveness, and we have one or two campaigns.”
NHI – a consortium formed by Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo Helicopters and GKN/Fokker – holds a current order backlog for almost 100 NH90s, including 31 TTH-model transports contracted by Spain in December 2025.
Other commitments from that total include for 18 Standard 2 special forces-variant aircraft the French army – Aloccio says the second and third of which are due to be delivered “in the next few weeks” – and a total of 31 Sea Tiger-model examples for the German navy.
Data from aviation analytics company Cirium shows that the global in-service fleet of NH90s totals almost 470 examples, with military operators in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Qatar, Spain and Sweden.
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