Bristow Group Signs Launch Agreement with Electra to Secure First Delivery Slot for EL9 Aircraft

Elec­tra and Bris­tow Group have signed a Pre-Deliv­ery Pay­ment (PDP) deposit agree­ment which secures the first deliv­ery slot for Electra’s EL9 Ultra Short hybrid-elec­tric air­craft.

Announced yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) the PDP agree­ment includes option rights for Bris­tow to anoth­er 45 air­craft at the same fixed terms.

Bris­tow plans to deploy the EL9 across turnkey mobil­i­ty solu­tions for cor­po­rate cus­tomers, pre­mier des­ti­na­tions and resorts, major and region­al air­lines, and gov­ern­ment agen­cies oper­at­ing essen­tial pub­lic ser­vice routes.

Capa­ble of car­ry­ing nine pas­sen­gers with bag­gage or 3,000lbs of car­go for 330 nau­ti­cal miles, the EL9 has a max­i­mum fer­ry range of 1,100 nau­ti­cal miles with IFR reserves.

Marc Allen, CEO of Elec­tra, said: “Bris­tow has a long and respect­ed track record of safe­ly oper­at­ing com­plex mis­sions in some of the most demand­ing envi­ron­ments on earth. We are proud to wel­come Bris­tow as an EL9 Launch Cus­tomer.

“By reserv­ing five deliv­ery slots in the EL9’s first year of pro­duc­tion, to include slot one, they have made a pow­er­ful state­ment of con­fi­dence in Elec­tra, our EL9 air­craft, and the future of Direct Avi­a­tion.

“We could not imag­ine a stronger or more capa­ble part­ner to lead the intro­duc­tion of this trans­for­ma­tive mode of advanced air mobil­i­ty that will give com­mu­ni­ties, trav­el­ers, and air­lines access to fast, flex­i­ble, and sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion.”

Bris­tow and Elec­tra have worked togeth­er for five years, start­ing with a pre-order agree­ment in 2021. The par­ties have now con­vert­ed their pre-order LOI into a fixed agree­ment for five EL9 deliv­ery slots, all to be deliv­ered in the EL9’s first year of pro­duc­tion.

With more than sev­en decades of expe­ri­ence oper­at­ing com­plex heli­copter and fixed-wing mis­sions for cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment cus­tomers around the world, Bris­tow has a proven his­to­ry of inte­grat­ing next-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.

The EL9 Ultra Short’s abil­i­ty to take off and land in just 150 feet will allow Bris­tow to open new trans­porta­tion options, strength­en­ing air­line net­works and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing trav­el times.

Dave Stepanek, Bris­tow Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Chief Trans­for­ma­tion Offi­cer, said: “Electra’s EL9 fun­da­men­tal­ly changes what region­al air mobil­i­ty can be. “Its ultra-short per­for­mance, qui­et oper­a­tion, and low­er oper­at­ing costs cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties that sim­ply do not exist with today’s air­craft.

“Secur­ing deliv­ery slot one and reserv­ing deliv­ery slots in the first year of pro­duc­tion ensures Bris­tow will lead this new indus­try and bring advanced air mobil­i­ty capa­bil­i­ties to our cus­tomers first.

“We are con­fi­dent that with this order we will extend our lega­cy of inno­va­tion and deliv­er new lev­els of access, speed, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty to our cus­tomers across the many mar­kets we serve.”

Electra’s Direct Avi­a­tion mod­el uses Ultra Short air­craft to unlock thou­sands of new Ultra Short access points – includ­ing fields, park­ing lots, and under­uti­lized run­ways – bring­ing air trav­el clos­er to where peo­ple live, work, and play.

By pair­ing prac­ti­cal infra­struc­ture with trans­for­ma­tive capa­bil­i­ty, Direct Avi­a­tion enables trips that were pre­vi­ous­ly imprac­ti­cal or impos­si­ble and expands eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­mu­ni­ties of every size.