Airbus to strengthen ‘Make in India‘ programme
Airbus’ industrial partnerships with Indian companies under the ‘Make in India’ programme will set the tone of its participation at the 11th edition of Aero India to be held at the Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru, India from 14th -18th of February 2017.
Pierre de Bausset, President and Managing Director at Airbus India, said: “The future of Indian aerospace and defence industry rests on the realization of the ‘Make in India’ vision. I look forward to having conversations around the topic at Aero India. We have partnered with Tata and Mahindra and are working with a host of other companies to script ‘Make in India’ success stories.”
Visitors at the Airbus stand will get a first-hand account of Airbus’ industrial engagement with India which yields over $500 million (approx. Rs. 3,400 crores) in procurement from India annually from around 45 suppliers, generating local employment for more than 6,000 people. To illustrate the scale of co-operation, Airbus can claim that each of its commercial aircraft produced today is partly Made-in-India.
The potential of Airbus & India partnership is bigger and this will be exhibited in the form of scale models of the C295W military transport aircraft and the AS565 MBe Panther helicopter.
As part of the Avro replacement programme of the Ministry of Defence, Airbus will support Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) in setting-up a final assembly line for the C295W in India, once the contract is awarded. Airbus has tied-up with Mahindra Defence to create India’s first private sector company for manufacturing military helicopters. Making India the global hub for ‘Panther’ manufacturing – producing Panthers in India, for the domestic market as well as for exports – is proposed under the Naval Utility Helicopter programme.
According to Airbus, there are around 590 A320neo on order from India which means, on overage, one aircraft will be delivered to India per week over the next 10 years.
