Italy’s defence ministry has contracted Leonardo Helicopters to supply 18 AW169Ms to Austria after the Alpine nation in December doubled its order for the medium-twin rotorcraft.
Leonardo values the contract from the Directorate for Air Armaments and Airworthiness at €304 million ($329 million).
To be acquired via a government-to-government sale process, the AW169M Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) is also operated by the Italian army and other paramilitary agencies.
Austria has now ordered 36 examples, with the first handed over last December; deliveries are expected to be complete by 2028.
Vienna will use the AW169Ms to replace its fleet of elderly Aerospatiale Alouette IIIs.
Dominic Perry is deputy editor of Flight International but also contributes extensively to flightglobal.com. Although specialising in the coverage of the helicopter industry, he has written on most topics in aerospace – be they commercial, defence or business aviation. In addition, there has been an increasing focus on the decarbonisation of the industry and zero-emission flight initiatives.View full Profile
