Simplon Air was founded in 2007 by italian helicopter pioneer Gian Paolo Giana. As early as 1972, at the age of 25, Giana started to operate helicopters in the mountains around the Ossola valley and named the emerging company "Giana Helicopter". Having swiss roots and being an admirer of swiss rescue pioneer Hermann Geiger, Giana seems to feel more swiss than italian, as the family owned company operates it's helicopters under the swiss register. The flagship of the fleet is this 1995 built MD900 which was previously operated by Breitling and joined Simplon Air in June of 2018.