Helicopter Maker Abandons New Factory
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The company had planned to \\u201cconquer\\u201d the U.S. market. In early 2019, a Swiss helicopter manufacturer held a press conference to tout its plans to \\u201cconquer\\u201d the U.S. market from its new factory in southern Louisiana. Three years later, things haven\\u2019t exactly gone according to plan \\u2014 in fact, it turns out the company has pulled the plug on the project altogether. Kopter, a maker of single-turbine helicopters for transportation services, utilities, and first responders, reportedly selected a location in Lafayette, Louisiana, ahead of dozens of potential sites. The company bought out the lease at a former Bell Helicopter facility at the city\\u2019s airport and vowed to invest more than $4 million in the complex. The plant was reportedly in line to make a new helicopter for the company, creating more than 120 new jobs \\u2014 and receiving millions in incentives from the state.
Less than a year later, however, Kopter was acquired by Italian aerospace company Leonardo, whose primary U.S. operations are in Philadelphia and which operated a maintenance facility in nearby Broussard, Louisiana. Although Kopter continued to operate independently, by the following March, the fate of the Lafayette project was apparently already in jeopard
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