The Leonardo AW609. (Leonardo Helicopters US Photo) Leonardo reports strong 2024 results By Mark Huber At VERTICON 2025 on Monday, Mar. 10, helicopter OEM Leonardo announced that 2024 revenue topped 5 billion euro for the first time and that its backlog had grown to 15.1 billion euro. For the year, the company reported delivering 191 helicopters, up from 185 in 2023. The deliveries included 72 AW109/119 series, 67 AW139s, 30 AW169s, 13 AW189/149 series, 8 NH90s, and 1 AW101. Orders reached 5.9 billion euro, a 6.4% jump from 2023. Customer support and training constituted 40% of 2024 revenue. For the year, Leonardo trained 15,100 students, providing 49,000 simulator hours and 4,400 hours of live flight training. It also received FAA FTD (flight training device) Level 7 certification for its Virtual Extended Reality (VxR) simulator. Compared with 2019, it increased its spares stock by 35% while its customer fleets’ flight hours grew by 30%. Leonardo reported that preliminary sales contracts for the AW09 large single-engine turbine helicopter now exceed 120 units, and flight testing has resumed after a five-month delay to resolve a supplier issue. The company said it still hopes to have the helicopter certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency by the end of 2025. Meanwhile, the AW609 civil tiltrotor aircraft has received its first type inspection authorization approval from the FAA as it continues toward full FAA certification approval. The company added, however, “We won’t speculate on the AW609 certification date as we continue to work toward the end of development.” An experimental variant of the AW609, the Next Generation Civil Tiltrotor Technology Demonstrator, developed by a research program in part funded by the European Union Clean Sky 2 initiative, began power-on ground-testing during the summer of 2024. Leonardo’s global helicopter fleet that services the global energy sector has grown to more than 500 helicopters, and the company reported it now has a substantial market share and has flown more than 3.7-million hours. Fully 480 of those helicopters are from the company’s AW139/169/189 family of twin turbines. Two US military programs continue to evolve with Leonardo aircraft. The company has delivered 115 TH-73 “Thrasher” single-engine turbine helicopters to the Navy for flight training, and that fleet has now accumulated more than 60,000 flight hours. The US Air Force accepted 12 MH-139 Grey Wolf turbine twins, a model based on Leonardo’s AW139 and produced in cooperation with Boeing. Leonardo reported five more are in production, and a contract has been awarded for another seven. The company said it intends to bid on an anticipated US Army competition for a new primary helicopter trainer and will offer the TH-73. Mark Huber is an aviation journalist with more than two decades of experience in the vertical flight industry.
