Tradewind Aviation, an on-demand private charter and scheduled shuttle operator, announced Tuesday that it has signed an order for 20 new PC-12 NGX turboprops from Pilatus Business Aircraft.
The deal expands Tradewind’s fleet of Pilatus PC-12s to 38.
Delivery will begin in the third quarter of 2022, with the remaining orders scheduled to deliver during the next five years at a rate of three to four PC-12 NGXs per year.
“We are excited to grow our fleet of Pilatus PC-12 NGX turboprops and further our partnership with a well-respected industry leader,” said Eric Zipkin, co-founder and president of Tradewind Aviation, in a statement. “The latest Pilatus enhancements will benefit our crew and clientele.
“We look forward to continuing to deliver excellent service to our clients and Tradewind’s constant growth over the coming years.”
Tradewind operates predominantly in North America and the Caribbean, with a robust presence in the Northeast. The new deliveries will make the company one of the largest Pilatus aircraft operators in the world. Only PlaneSense—a fractional and charter operator also concentrated in the Northeast—will have a more extensive fleet.
The PC-12 is the bestselling single-engine turboprop with a pressurized cabin overall in its class, with more than 1,700 deliveries to date. Pilatus introduced the new PC-12 NGX at the 2019 National Business Aviation Association-Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) in Las Vegas.
“We are pleased to continue our partnership with Tradewind as they upgrade and expand their fleet and look forward to celebrating their uninterrupted success for years to come,” Thomas Bosshard, CEO of Pilatus Business Aircraft, said in a statement.
Though terms of the deal were not announced, according to Pilatus’s website, the base price of the PC-12 NGX in 2021 was $4.48 million, with typically equipped executive-configured aircraft priced at $5.4 million. A recent GAMA aviation report that tracks aircraft sales and deliveries each year indicates that Pilatus delivered 88 PC-12s in 2021, as overall turboprop sales increased as much as 19 percent.
