Specialist Aviation Services is one of the leading helicopter special mission operators in the UK, operating and maintaining six Leonardo AW169 helicopters for three air ambulance charities. It acts as a Leonardo Service Centre and an MD Helicopters Service Centre from its base at Staverton airport (Gloucestershire, UK). In recent years, Specialist Aviation Services expanded its capabilities in maintenance and grew internationally including winning contracts in the Middle East in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Times has reported that "Had Specialist gone bust, the six helicopters used by air ambulances serving Kent, Surrey, West and East Sussex, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire would have been grounded. Last year, the six helicopters were involved in more than 5,000 incidents."

All parties were intensely focused throughout transaction on ensuring continuity of service to Specialist Aviation Services’ air ambulance charities in their life saving operations. The Civil Aviation Authority assigned Specialist’s regulatory approvals to Gama Aviation such that an orderly and safe management of change processes may take place.

This transaction demonstrates Dial Partners’ experience and understanding of the Aviation Services sector and our ability to support our clients on complex transactions, in particular during this pre-pack process.

We reaffirm our focus on delivering superior outcomes for our clients with this transaction, significantly increasing the scale of Gama Aviation's Special Mission strategic business unit and building on our prior success where we advised on the sale of the company's US MRO business, Jet East.

The deal team at Dial Partners was Angus Russel, Sandor de Jasay and Joel Whittemore.