Redding Air Service, Inc.

Redding Air Service, Inc., doing business as Redding Air Service, operates as a prime contractor providing helicopter aviation support services—aerial firefighting, fire suppression, cargo and personnel transport, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and prescribed burn operations—to federal agencies on a full-and-open basis, with no SBA set-aside designations across the majority of its recent prime footprint. The company is a for-profit corporate entity headquartered in Redding, California, with a recent award portfolio dominated by federal wildland fire management and emergency response missions.

Redding Air Service holds a commanding position across two primary IDIQ vehicles anchoring federal helicopter support contracting. The National Interagency Fire Center awarded the company a $50 million Helicopter Support Services - Type 2 multiple-award IDIQ on January 1, 2024, running through December 2033, under which 11 task orders have been placed; a second $50 million Type 3 Helicopter Support Services multiple-award IDIQ effective April 12, 2023, through December 2032, also issued by NIFC; and the Department of the Interior's $49.5 million On-Call Type III Helicopter Flight Services multiple-award IDIQ (total small business set-aside, May 1, 2022, through April 2027), which carries 8 task orders. The company also operates under several blanket purchase agreements, including IND80ARA1540 (16 task orders), DEAB6511WN93915 (14 task orders, $191 thousand combined value), and DEWA0001963 (10 task orders, $204 thousand combined value). Representative recent work includes a $160,969.56 delivery order from the Department of Agriculture Forest Service for helicopter flight services supporting Department of the Interior fire suppression during the 2026 fire season (July 13, 2026, completion November 30, 2026); a $1.52 million February 2025 delivery order from NIFC for helicopter aviation support at Prineville, Oregon (completion December 31, 2029); a $518,298.55 June 2024 delivery order from the Bureau of Land Management for Type III helicopter fire suppression in Miles City, Montana; and a $709,883.83 August 2024 delivery order, also from BLM, for small helicopter flight services supporting fire management activities. All orders are firm fixed price and executed directly by the prime contractor without major subcontractors.

Customer concentration is extreme and single-mission-focused. The Department of Agriculture Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management National Interagency Fire Center accounts for 40 awards and $182.7 million combined potential value—62% of the vendor's total award count and 62% of combined potential value across the entire portfolio. The Department of the Interior Departmental Offices (Interior Business Center and Office of Policy Management and Budget) holds 7 awards with $102 million combined potential value (primarily driven by two large IDIQs). The top five customers account for 63% of all awards. Activity has contracted in recent years: 2022 generated 8 awards, 2024 yielded 11, but 2025 has produced only 2 awards to date and 2026 shows 6. Only five awards (combined potential value $206 thousand) face completion within the next twenty-four months, indicating minimal near-term recompete exposure despite the vendor's concentration in fire-season-dependent work streams.

The vendor competes exclusively as a prime contractor (100% of awards), with no subcontract teaming or sub-award activity in the source data. SCI-reportable invoicing data is minimal—$1.2 million in FY2024 across 1.4 FTEs, with zero reportable invoicing in FY2022 and FY2023—reflecting the fact that SCI captures only service contracts above the $150,000 threshold and excludes goods and products; the vast majority of Redding Air Service's federal revenue derives from helicopter-hour and aircraft-delivery orders that fall outside SCI reporting scope. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI records show a median of $448.57/hr, with rates ranging from a 10th percentile of $326.90/hr to a 90th percentile of $570.24/hr. The vendor delivers no subcontractors on any contracts captured in the source data, with all work performed directly by the prime. NAICS profile centers on nonscheduled chartered passenger air transportation (68 awards) and nonscheduled chartered freight air transportation (50 awards), with PSC coding split between passenger air charter (52 awards) and forest-range fire suppression/presuppression (42 awards). The company's award footprint spans 164 total federal transactions since 1987, with $294.9 million in combined potential value and $51.1 million (17%) in combined obligated dollars to date.

HELICOPTER SERVICE - PART 135 AND 91, 133 AND 145. CHARTER, PAX AND CARGO, LONG LINE, HELI-TORCH, FIRE SUPPRESSION, SIGHT SEEING, POWER AND PIPE LINE PATROL, FORESTRY, SURVEY, RECONN, FILMING AND PHOTO, ANIMAL HURDING, ANIMAL AND BIRD COUNTS, SNOW, ETC.