Heliqwest International Inc.

Heliqwest International Inc., a for-profit aviation company based in Broomfield, Colorado, operates as a prime contractor providing helicopter services to federal land management and wildland fire agencies, competing under full-and-open contracts with no set-aside designations across its primary award portfolio.

Heliqwest delivers specialized helicopter support for wildland fire management, natural resource operations, and emergency response across federal agencies. Core capabilities include fire suppression operations, fire retardant and water drops, aerial reconnaissance, short-haul transportation, cargo and personnel movement, rappel operations, and search-and-rescue support. The company operates Type I, II, and III helicopters from multiple bases across the continental United States, Canada, and Mexico. Representative prime work includes a $6.689 million firm fixed-price delivery order from the National Interagency Fire Center (May 2025) for helicopter services in Chester, California, running through December 2029; a $2.015 million delivery order from the National Park Service Pacific West Region (February 2026) for EU Type II short-haul operations at Yosemite National Park; and a $1.88 million delivery order from the Forest Service (October 2022) for aviation services in Alexandria, Louisiana and Hungry Horse, Montana. All recent awards reflect firm fixed-price or fixed-price-with-economic-price-adjustment structures with no cost-plus elements.

Customer concentration sits heavily with the Department of Agriculture Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management National Interagency Fire Center, which accounts for 71 awards (44% of total awards) and $378.1 million in combined potential value (68% of all dollars across Heliqwest's federal portfolio). The Department of the Interior holds the second-largest aggregate customer position through multiple regional offices: the Interior Business Center (6 awards, $62.3 million potential value), the Bureau of Land Management Idaho Region (16 awards, $25 million), the National Park Service Intermountain Region (22 awards, $23 million), and the National Park Service Pacific West Region (12 awards, $15.9 million). These five customer entities account for 78% of award count and 95% of potential value. Activity has shown volatility: 30 awards in 2022, declining to 9 in 2023, recovering to 11 in 2024, then declining again to 10 in 2025 and 9 in the first half of 2026. Only five awards (combined potential value $2.5 million) face ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, indicating moderate recompete exposure.

Heliqwest holds five active indefinite delivery contracts: a $50 million Type 1 Helicopter Support Services MATOC with the National Interagency Fire Center (awarded January 2025, runs through December 2034); a $50 million Helicopter Support Services Type 2 MATOC with the National Interagency Fire Center (awarded January 2024, runs through December 2033); a $30 million Type 3 Helicopter Support Services Master IDIQ with the National Interagency Fire Center (awarded April 2023, runs through December 2032); a $49.5 million On-Call Type III Helicopter Flight Services IDIQ with the Department of the Interior (Total Small Business set-aside, awarded May 2022, runs through April 2027); and a $9.98 million single-award EU Helicopter Flight Service Type II contract with the National Park Service Pacific West Region (Total Small Business set-aside, awarded March 2022, runs through February 2027). The first three contracts carry no set-aside; the latter two are Total Small Business set-asides. Under these vehicles, 16 task orders flow through one legacy IDC, 14 through a basic ordering agreement, and 10 through another predecessor IDC.

Service Contract Inventory data captures $36.1 million in invoiced revenue across fiscal years 2022–2024 (a subset of Heliqwest's total federal services revenue and excluding goods, products, and non-federal work). FY2022 showed $11.5 million across 19.5 FTEs; FY2023 totaled $12 million across 24.9 FTEs; FY2024 reached $12.6 million across 36.7 FTEs, reflecting growth in reported workforce scale. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts cluster at a median of $253.41 per hour, with a 10th percentile floor of $107.98 per hour and a 90th percentile ceiling of $378.34 per hour. Heliqwest self-performs all reported contractor hours with zero subcontractor engagement on its SCI-reportable prime contracts, indicating a direct-delivery model with no sub-reliance. Across all 163 federal awards in the source data, 100% are prime awards; the vendor carries no subcontract footprint.

Helicopter Charter FAA Part 135, 133, 137