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Founded | 1955 | ||||||
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Hubs | El Dorado Int'l Airport | ||||||
Frequent-flyer program | LifeMiles | ||||||
Fleet size | See Avianca | ||||||
Destinations | See Avianca | ||||||
Parent company | Avianca | ||||||
Headquarters | Bogotá, Colombia | ||||||
Website | www.helicol.com.co |
Helicol (Spanish acronym: Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia) is a helicopter operator based at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia. It is a subsidiary airline of Avianca.
The company was established and started operations in 1955. It originally started as a joint venture of U.S. and Colombian capitals. It was later acquired by Avianca, which was owned by the Grupo Bavaria. In 2003 the company was separated from Avianca. Today is a wholly owned subsidiary of Valores Bavaria. In 2006, the company was acquired by Efromovich's Avianca.
95% HeliCol operations are onshore.
Helicol was founded on 3 July 1955, as a response to the needs of the oil exploration activities in Colombia. Initially it was a joint venture between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based Keystone Helicopters Corporation, and Avianca; as Keystone had signed a contract with Shell Oil Company to run oil exploration activities in the north side of the Country. In order to fulfill the air laws in force back then, Keystone searched for a Colombian partner who could take control of 51% of the stakes of the company, a roll taken by Avianca. It was the creation of the first non-regular air services supplier in Colombia.
3 Bell 47G helicopters leased from Keystone became the initial fleet of Helicol, and Mr. Alberto Farías Mendoza, and important Avianca´s executive was appointed as the first general manager. Similar contracts were signed shortly afterwards and by 1957 the fleet grow up to 6 helicopters. Between 1961 and 1963, crop-dusting activities in helicopters were also performed, and in 1964 Helicol was hired by the Texas Petroleum and Gulf Oil Company to build the trans-Andean pipeline between the town of Orito in Putumayo Department and Tumaco, on the Pacific Ocean in Colombia, a job in which Bell 204 helicopters were used. The tasks required to lift heavy metallic tubes and locate them in the trace of the pipeline, through irregular terrains. Similar works were performed in Ecuador in 1969, in the construction of the Trans-Ecuadorean pipeline and similar activities were performed in Peru in 1970. It is important to mention that even former Vietnam pilots did not succeed in flying the Bell 204 machines, the way Colombians did. Additional services were also conducted in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, in Central America. By this time, the company was fully owned by Avianca.