Air Zermatt

When a rotor sound echoes through the valley in Zermatt, chances are high that it is Air Zermatt. The helicopter company has flown from the foot of the Matterhorn since 1968 – sometimes with an injured climber on the hoist, sometimes with building materials for a mountain hut, sometimes with guests on a sightseeing flight. For spotters, Air Zermatt is a special case: no runways, no jets, no flight schedules. Instead, helicopters in front of one of the most famous mountain backdrops in the world. This page shows you who is behind Air Zermatt, which aircraft fly and how to identify them cleanly.

Air Zermatt at a glance

Air Zermatt is a Swiss helicopter operator based in the car-free mountain village of Zermatt in the canton of Valais. The company was founded in 1968 – with exactly one helicopter, one pilot and one mechanic. The driving force was the Zermatt pharmacist Beat H. Perren, who bought the first helicopter, an Agusta-Bell 206A JetRanger, and acquired the land for the heliport. After the founding, the young company pushed ahead with building the heliport. Perren stayed connected to the company for decades as chairman of the board and later as honorary chairman; he died in 2025.

The background to the founding is typical for the Alps of the 1960s: mountain rescues were often protracted back then because the injured had to be laboriously carried down to the valley. A helicopter of its own, based right in Zermatt, was meant to drastically shorten that time.

Today Air Zermatt employs, by its own account, around 95 permanent staff – pilots, rescue and transport paramedics, flight assistants, mechanics, operations managers and administration. The fleet has grown to 11 helicopters. The company is led by CEO Daniel Aufdenblatten, himself a pilot.

Codes, callsign and registrations

• ICAO code AZF: Air Zermatt appears under this abbreviation in air traffic control flight plans and sometimes on trackers.
• Callsign “AIR ZERMATT”: This is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.
• No IATA code: Air Zermatt does not sell scheduled flights, so there is also no two-letter flight number as with SWISS.
• Registration HB-: All helicopters are registered in Switzerland. On rotorcraft you mostly see registrations from the HB-X… or HB-Z… series; how the Swiss system works is explained in the guide to Swiss HB registrations.

For your logbook, the registration is therefore the most important feature. Because Air Zermatt uses no flight numbers that you can look up on a departure board, the registration on the tail boom is often the only unambiguous clue.

What Air Zermatt flies: rescue, transport, sightseeing

Air Zermatt is a mixed operation. According to Wikipedia, roughly 55 percent of flights are transport, around 20 percent each are sightseeing flights and rescue, and about 5 percent are training. Rescue is therefore not the largest share by number – but it shapes the company’s image.

Air and mountain rescue

Air Zermatt is a partner of the Valais cantonal rescue organization (KWRO). Anyone who dials the emergency number 144 in Valais reaches its dispatch center; in Upper Valais, Air Zermatt then often flies. Since the early 1970s the company has been regarded as a pioneer of medical helicopter rescue: in 1973 it introduced rescue flights with doctors on board. In 1970, with an Alouette III (HB-XDA), Air Zermatt bought, according to the company, the first helicopter in Switzerland with a rescue hoist.

There is also the rescue card, a supporter membership that covers rescue costs that mandatory accident and health insurance does not pay. Air Zermatt also operates two ambulance vehicles in the inner Mattertal.

Transport and utility flights

Most of the flight hours are utility flights: material for mountain huts, avalanche barriers, logging, installations, cable pulling for power lines, reconnaissance flights as well as film and photo flights. Air Zermatt became known, for example, for transports during the construction of the cable car to the Klein Matterhorn. For spotters these flights are the most interesting, because you see helicopters with an external load on a line – a subject that practically never occurs at commercial airports.

Sightseeing flights and heli-skiing

According to Air Zermatt, sightseeing flights depart from Zermatt around the Matterhorn and from Raron to the Bietschhorn and Aletsch region. A standard Matterhorn flight lasts 20 minutes and costs (as of October 2026) CHF 230 per person; a flight usually departs from four guests, and the helicopter has five seats. In addition there are heli-skiing, transfer flights and heliport tours.

The fleet: H125 and Bell 429

According to Air Zermatt, the fleet consists of 11 helicopters. The company does not publish an official breakdown by type and registration. The two main types are clearly documented:

Type	Engines	Use at Air Zermatt	Spotter tip
Airbus H125 (AS 350 B3 Ecureuil)	1 turbine	Transport, sightseeing flights, high-mountain rescue	Slim fuselage, three-bladed main rotor, skids
Bell 429	2 turbines	Search and rescue missions, instrument flight	Larger cabin, four-bladed main rotor, skids

The Airbus H125 is the company’s workhorse and one of the most important mountain helicopters of all. The type is known for its performance at high altitude: on May 14, 2005, an AS 350 B3 became the first helicopter to land on the summit of Mount Everest. The manufacturer is Airbus Helicopters, formerly Eurocopter.

The Bell 429 complements the fleet as a twin-engine model. Two engines provide reserves in the event of an engine failure and allow instrument flight – important for missions in poor visibility. The Bell 429 is built in Mirabel, Canada, and was certified in 2009.

Air Zermatt handles maintenance itself: the company has held an EASA Part-145 approval since 2007. Base maintenance is in Raron, line maintenance is available in Zermatt as well as at the airfields of Buochs and Mollis. Besides the H125 and Bell 429, the approval also lists the Airbus H130 (EC 130 T2), which Air Zermatt used to operate.

Historic types

If you sort through old photos, you will come across models that no longer fly with Air Zermatt today:

• Agusta-Bell 206A JetRanger – the first helicopter from 1968, built under license after the model of the Bell 206. It was destroyed in an accident on the Upper Theodul Glacier in March 1969; nobody was injured.
• Alouette III – with the SA 316 Alouette III HB-XDA the rescue hoist came to Zermatt in 1970.
• SA 315 B Lama – the legendary high-altitude helicopter; Air Zermatt had three of them, two were sold in 2015 and 2016, and the last one left service after a crash on the approach to the Alphubel mountain landing site in December 2021.
• EC 135 T2 – a model of the Airbus H135 series; according to Wikipedia the aircraft was later converted and sold to Air-Glaciers.
• EC 130 T2 – has since left the fleet.

According to Wikipedia, Air Zermatt also announced in 2016 that it would take part in the development of the Swiss light helicopter, which is now marketed as the Leonardo AW09.

Milestones in rescue history

The history of Air Zermatt is closely tied to spectacular missions:

• 1971 – Eiger north face: After training the year before, pilot Günther Amann achieved the first direct hoist rescue from the north face of the Eiger. Until then, rescues from the face were considered extremely protracted.
• 2000 and 2003 – disaster missions: Air Zermatt helped with the Gondo landslide in October 2000 and the Leuk forest fire in August 2003.
• 2010 – Annapurna: In April 2010 an Air Zermatt crew in Nepal rescued three climbers from an altitude of around 7,000 meters; the crew was honored for it in 2011. Also in 2011, Air Zermatt built a rescue station in the Himalayas together with the Zermatt rescue station and trained Nepalese specialists.
• 2017 – blood on board: According to Wikipedia, in 2017 Air Zermatt began giving patients blood transfusions already in flight.
• 2018 – Zermatt cut off: When Zermatt was cut off from the outside world after heavy snowfall in January 2018, Air Zermatt flew out more than 2,000 people and around 67 tons of material.

The heliports: Zermatt and Raron

Zermatt heliport (LSEZ)

The headquarters is on Spissstrasse on the edge of the car-free village. Because no cars drive in Zermatt, you reach the heliport from the station on foot; the walk is short. The Matterhorn sightseeing flights depart from here, and this is also the rescue base for the inner Mattertal. Line maintenance is available on site.

Raron heliport (LSER)

The second major site is in the Rhone valley: the Raron heliport with the base maintenance center. Unlike Zermatt, Raron can also be reached by car. Sightseeing flights to the Bietschhorn and Aletsch region depart from Raron. Wikipedia names Gampel as a third base.

Spotting Air Zermatt: tips

Photographing helicopters is different from shooting jets at the runway end. Here are a few basic rules for getting good pictures in Zermatt:

• Avoid short shutter speeds: With helicopters, a shutter speed that is too short freezes the rotor blades, and the picture looks as if the helicopter were standing still in the air. Try longer exposure times with clean panning. More on this in the guide Helicopter spotting.
• Use the backdrop: The big appeal of Zermatt is the Matterhorn in the background. Plan the light for it; the mountain often looks best in the late morning and late afternoon.
• Focal length: For approaches and departures at the heliport, a medium telephoto zoom is often enough; for utility flights at altitude you need more focal length.
• Telling types apart: How to separate the H125, Bell 429 and other models by fuselage and rotor is shown in Recognizing helicopter types.

If you travel to Zermatt, you usually arrive via one of the big Swiss airports. A side trip for spotting is worthwhile: at Zurich Airport and Geneva Airport you see the jets of SWISS and Helvetic Airways, and in Zermatt then the helicopters. And if you want to dig deeper into Swiss aviation history, the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne is a good stop.

Common mix-ups

• Taking every helicopter in Valais for Air Zermatt – other operators fly in Valais too. The titles and the registration decide.
• Confusing Air Zermatt with Rega – Rega is a nationwide foundation, Air Zermatt a private company in Upper Valais.
• Confusing the H125 and H130 – the H130 has a wider fuselage and a shrouded tail rotor (Fenestron), the H125 an open tail rotor.
• Taking a Bell 429 for a Bell 407 – the 429 is twin-engine and has a distinctly wider cabin.
• Taking Air Zermatt for an airline with scheduled flights – there is no IATA code and no flight numbers on the departure board.
• Equating Air-Glaciers and Air Zermatt – both have cooperated since 2020 but are independent brands.

Conclusion

Air Zermatt is not a destination for the classic airport tour but one of the special chapters in the spotter’s logbook. A company that began with a single helicopter in 1968 now flies rescues, transports and sightseeing flights in Upper Valais with 11 aircraft. Anyone who knows the difference between the H125 and Bell 429, notes the HB registration and gives rescue operations respectful room brings back pictures from Zermatt that can be taken at no other spot.