Boeing upbeat with orders, announces investments

New Delhi: Asserting that the Indian aviation sector’s growth fundamentals are strong, aircraft maker Boeing has said that significant skilling of people to meet demand, rationalisation of fuel taxes and continued infrastructure investments will keep the growth going. Boeing, which has hundreds of aircraft on order from Indian carriers, has also announced various investments, including $100 million for training pilots in the country.

Besides, it has maintenance training partnerships with partners for having enough skilled mechanics in India. “We see no slowdown (in India) and we continue to see very high load factors, extremely high rates of profitability amongst the airlines and we see extremely strong demand for aeroplanes as we have seen in some of the largest orders ever placed in the world. “Overall, we see that demand grows. We are also seeing significant advancements in infrastructure as new terminals come up... new greenfield airports come up...That is going to be a boon to Indian aviation,” Boeing India President Salil Gupte told PTI in a recent interview.

For many many years, he said all were expecting to see the significant growth in Indian aviation and it is now occurring in a very real way. India is one of the fastest growing civil aviation markets in the world and Indian carriers have around 1,500 planes on order. Earlier this year, Air India placed an order for 470 aircraft, including 220 planes from Boeing. Indian carriers are expected to require more than 2,200 aircraft in the next 20 years. In order to tap the growth opportunities, Gupte said a few ingredients need to be put in place, including ensuring that there are enough pilots and mechanics to fly all these aeroplanes. “That is going to require significant skilling, it is going to require us to train 37,000 pilots and 38,000 mechanics over the next 20 years. That is one reason why Boeing has announced a $100 million investment in pilot training, which includes infrastructure and curriculum... in India to ensure that we are doing our part to skill those pilots. “This is also the reason why we are entering into maintenance training partnerships among our partners to ensure that we have enough skilled mechanics in India as well,” he said. Further, Gupte noted that rationalisation of fuel taxes must continue

“There has been a good progress made with states in the last few years but we need to continue to make that progress, especially in some larger states, so that the rate of taxation of jet fuel can come down closer to the

global level.