Aviasur Builds Regional Network with Uruguay Maintenance Center, Bell Helicopters in Peru and Second Florida Hangar
Why It MattersBundling sales, FBO, storage, maintenance and upgrades under one regional provider shows how Latin American support is shifting toward single-contact lifecycle platforms anchored by OEM-linked partnerships and local certifications.
What happened
Aviasur, a Chilean company whose business covers aircraft sales, operational support, FBO services, storage, maintenance, private flights and aircraft upgrades, is consolidating a regional platform to support clients across the aircraft lifecycle. General Manager Rodrigo Contreras Brain said 2025 was a very intense year in which the company opened several fronts almost simultaneously, and that 2026 has focused on turning that expansion into concrete capabilities.
Recent milestones include adding Bell helicopters to the sales portfolio in Peru, starting operations at the maintenance center in Uruguay, and opening a second hangar in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In Uruguay the hangar was expanded from 600 to 1,500 square meters to serve operators across the Southern Cone. The Fort Lauderdale facility complements the existing one in Miami and increases aircraft storage and support capacity.
Contreras said the company seeks local partners that bring knowledge, certifications, infrastructure and relationships. The partners named are Textron Aviation, Bell Helicopters (in Peru), Garmin, Pratt & Whitney, Williams, MT-Propeller and Blackhawk.
Chile remains the primary operational and technical hub. The Santiago FBO has exclusive underground parking and VIP lounges, and Aviasur operates a High-Density Terminal adjacent to the main terminal that can handle flights with up to 180 passengers, a capability relevant to sectors such as mining. Santiago also hosts much of the company's technical capability, including maintenance integrated with avionics solutions and performance upgrades.
Contreras said Aviasur measures growth not by the number of countries it operates in but by how well it supports clients, and that the company aims to be a single point of contact for aircraft operators in the region.
Industry impact & what to watch
Aviasur's expansion illustrates a model that regional business-aviation support providers are increasingly pursuing: rather than specialising in a single service, they combine sales, FBO handling, storage, maintenance and upgrades so that one relationship covers an aircraft from acquisition through its operating life. For operators in the Southern Cone, that reduces the number of vendors to coordinate and puts more of the decision-making about downtime and upgrades in one place.
The partner list matters as much as the square footage. Maintenance capacity in a new country is only useful to an operator if the work is performed under the right certifications and backed by manufacturer relationships, which is why the company frames local partners as sources of certifications and infrastructure as well as contacts. A hangar in Uruguay or a second one in Florida adds capacity; it is the credentials attached to that capacity that determine which aircraft types and customers it can actually serve.
The next concrete test is how the Uruguay center, now operating in a hangar of 1,500 square meters, performs as the company's Southern Cone service point, and whether Bell helicopter sales in Peru develop into a lasting line alongside the fixed-wing business.
