Pipistrel expands presence in Africa with Absolute Aviation

Pip­istrel, a Tex­tron com­pa­ny, is bol­ster­ing its African sales net­work with the appoint­ment of Absolute Avi­a­tion, head­quar­tered at Lanse­ria Inter­na­tion­al air­port in South Africa, as its dis­trib­u­tor to 11 coun­tries across south­ern and cen­tral Africa.

Already a long­stand­ing chan­nel part­ner of Tex­tron Avi­a­tion as an autho­rised sales, ser­vice and parts rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Cess­na and Beechcraft in south­ern and cen­tral Africa, Absolute Avi­a­tion will take on respon­si­bil­i­ty for sales, ser­vice sup­port and train­ing for Pipistrel’s ultra­light, light sport and type cer­ti­fied air­craft, which include the Alpha Train­er, Velis Elec­tro, Explor­er and Pan­thera.

Absolute Avi­a­tion will also show­case demon­stra­tion air­craft across the region to pro­mote Pipistrel’s offerings.Absolute Avi­a­tion will serve Ango­la, Botswana, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozam­bique, Namib­ia, South Africa, Swazi­land, Zam­bia and Zim­bab­we.

“We are ful­ly com­mit­ted to build­ing our net­work of dis­trib­u­tors so that we can pre­cise­ly meet the needs of our cus­tomers across Africa,” says Steve Mcken­na, direc­tor of sales and mar­ket­ing at Pip­istrel.

“As an estab­lished Tex­tron Avi­a­tion chan­nel part­ner, Absolute Aviation’s cus­tomer-cen­tric approach is well known to us and we look for­ward to extend­ing this col­lab­o­ra­tion to show­case Pip­istrel.”

Absolute Avi­a­tion CEO Neil Howard added: “Extend­ing our rela­tion­ship with Tex­tron to include Pip­istrel under­lines the trust we have devel­oped and the suc­cess we have deliv­ered. We are com­mit­ted to build­ing on this track record for Pip­istrel in the fast-grow­ing African mar­ket.”

In 2020, Pipistrel’s Velis Elec­tro became the world’s first elec­tric air­craft to receive full type-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA). This achieve­ment fol­lowed a series of elec­tric air­craft intro­duc­tions since the com­pa­ny began research and devel­op­ment of elec­tric propul­sion in 2000.

Pipistrel’s pio­neer­ing work has been recog­nised through awards from NASA, IDC, and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions. The com­pa­ny, which offers a fam­i­ly of glid­ers and light air­craft with both elec­tric and com­bus­tion engines, has deliv­ered more than 2,500 light air­craft world­wide since its found­ing in 1989.

The appoint­ment of Absolute Avi­a­tion fol­lows Pipistrel’s expan­sion of its dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work in key regions across the globe. Most recent­ly, Pip­istrel appoint­ed Lin­coln Park Avi­a­tion (LPA) as its dis­trib­u­tor for 15 US states and Lanier Flight Cen­ter as its dis­trib­u­tor for five US states.

Pip­istrel selects Lin­coln Park Avi­a­tion as a US dis­trib­u­tor