Jiri Protiva, director of LOM Praha, outlined his future strategy for the Czech government-owned business during an exclusive interview with Key.Aero on September 17.
Having joined LOM Praha in February, his top priority is to stabilize the company and prepare it for the arrival of the 12 Bell UH-1Y/AH-1Zs ordered by the Czech Ministry of Defence (MOD) in December 2019, which are due to arrive in 2023. The arrival of the US helicopters will herald the retirement of the Mi-24/35 fleet the same year and he is tasked with bridging that revenue gap.
“We have to look for new opportunities to compensate this outage. So we are now negotiating with Bell for life-cycle support business. One of the priorities set for me by the Ministry of Defence is to negotiate more work for LOM Praha,” he said.
![Burkina Faso Mi-17 at LOM Praha in Czech Republic 09-20 [Alan Warnes]](https://fullfatthings-keyaero.b-cdn.net/sites/keyaero/files/inline-images/WarnesyBurkina%20Faso.JPG)
