It was 2008 and Bigas Grup did not give up. Specialized in construction, excavation and public works, it went from a turnover of 40 million euros to 10 in just one year. Cuts and cost containment were mandatory. However, this business turn made Josep Bigas Salvans’ passion for helicopters go from considering them as something subsidiary and susceptible to liquidation to a business.
Bigas is a car and aircraft pilot, in love with aviation. 15 years ago he was the owner of three helicopters that spent the night in a small hangar in Granollers. They were marketed for aerial advertising jobs, filming, monitoring of sporting events and photography. Some summers, an apparatus was also rented to the Fire Brigade as reinforcement for forest fire campaigns. The interest in maximizing all the possibilities made him develop the company BG Helicopters as an operator of passenger flights from the commercial center of La Roca del Vallès and Salou. The operator entered market niches not covered by the major helicopter companies: from aerial spraying with Bell JetRangers to transporting travelers to wineries, weddings, hotels, restaurants or private estates with devices that adapt to different budgets and customer profiles: whether to fly punctually with a Robinson R44 or for VIP door-to-door transfers in a comfortable Agusta A109.
The qualitative growth occurred when an agreement was reached with the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to manage its general services heliport and open it to unrestricted public use: the highest category for such an installation sort of Since then, the main base was established there, as was the maintenance center, a specialty that has become one of the major lines of business. Today it is one of the few companies certified to maintain the huge Chinook helicopters of the army and NATO in Colmenar Viejo. She is also in charge of the maintenance of the Transit helicopters in the capital and at five other bases in the rest of Spain.
The company is in the midst of a name change: BG Helicopters is now BG Aviation, since, as fellow pilot Josep Bigas Viñamata points out, it has gone from specializing in helicopters, with a fleet of 14 units, to the operation of planes, with four, grow in aeronautical maintenance, and in the future, fly drones. The company will close in 2023 with 80 workers, more than 3,000 hours flown and a turnover of over eight million euros, which is expected to rise to ten in 2024.
