Thanks to the irreproachable product support provided by Eurocopter, all the German Police Air Support Units remained fully mobilized throughout the FIFA World Cup, held in Germany from 9 June to 9 July 2006.

The Air Support Units from twelve regional police forces and the German Federal Police were kept busy throughout the series of matches. In all, the 123 aircraft involved clocked up a total of about 1,820 flight hours. Helicopter downtime was kept to the bare minimum thanks to the painstaking pre-event preparation by Eurocopter and the operators; a perfectly honed Aircraft On Ground (AOG) service; prompt availability of spare parts; and, last but not least, an extremely responsive product support team.

Reinhard Schmidt, Chief Police Commissioner,
who is in charge of managing the equipment and logistics of the Federal Police Air Support Unit.

“We were more than satisfied with the dedication and assistance of the Eurocopter Product Support teams during the World Cup. The Federal Police had 43 helicopters(1) in the air and logged 870 flight hours. Fortunately our needs were limited to the AOG service, and the problems we had with critical components or maintenance activities were solved very quickly in 2 to 8 days. The service was ideal, and the Eurocopter AOG team was on duty around the clock, acting both quickly and efficiently. The seminars organized by Eurocopter during the pre-event preparations meant that we could embark on the logistics phase more serenely because we knew that, if problems arose, Eurocopter would be there to help us in every possible way, for instance, by dispatching tech reps. Eurocopter also made sure that the suppliers were involved in the measures taken, and this proved extremely valuable. We experienced very few critical situations in terms of logistics. And the personal commitment of all the members of the Eurocopter team was outstanding. Thanks to this effort, the challenge was successfully met, and we can only hope that such measures will be repeated in the future for major events supervised by the police forces and the Federal Police Air Support Unit.”

René Gerner, Chief Police Commissioner of the Hesse Regional Police
"We had no major incidents during the World Cup and we only had to call on the Eurocopter AOG Service once for one of our EC145s. The helicopter was shipped during the night to the Eurocopter site in Donauwörth and was operational again the following morning. We were very impressed with the responsiveness displayed by Eurocopter, which was stupendous. We experienced very few problems during the World Cup because of the efforts made by Eurocopter before the event to raise the awareness of operators, suppliers and its own teams, and because the organization was so efficient, particularly for spare parts whose stocks were increased to ensure there would be no problems."