Airbus is grouping its activities in India through the creation of a fully owned subsidiary called Airbus India to manage the company’s significant Indian footprint spread across several sites. The new Airbus India organisation will have customer facing centres in Delhi and Mumbai. Building on the success of the Airbus Engineering Centre India (AECI) in Bangalore, Airbus India will also include strategy, customer services and procurement teams under one organisation. A Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) capability will be established, at a later date.
Already there are some 30 Indian suppliers working on Airbus programmes and manufacturing parts for every aircraft model.
Srinivasan Dwarakanath has been appointed Airbus India CEO and Charles Champion, EVP Airbus Engineering and member of the Airbus executive committee is appointed the chairman of Airbus India. The existing Delhi Airbus liaison office will remain under the leadership of Ajay Mehra, a company release said.
“Partnership is the binding ingredient for success, and the establishment of Airbus India underpins our strategy to foster even closer ties. Building on our significant engineering presence in India the new company structure will add a strong customer facing element making us more agile, bringing us closer to stakeholders, suppliers, and also to new talent. The Airbus India organisation will foster innovation, respond quickly to growth and to seek out new cooperation opportunities in India,” said Dwarakanath.
“India has one of the world’s greatest aviation growth potentials and with an abundance of engineering talent is a strategically important market,” said Kiran Rao, Airbus EVP -strategy and marketing. Airbus has been extending its industrial cooperation partnerships with India since the early 1970s, and today Indian engineering and manufacturing companies nationwide representing more than 5,000 people, contribute to all Airbus aircraft programmes, he said.
Dwarakanath was responsible for setting up Airbus’ industrial footprint in the region including the Airbus Engineering Centre India (AECI) and Airbus Training India (ATI) both located in Bangalore. Currently Indian carriers operate a fleet of over 170 Airbus aircraft. Airbus’ current market share of sales in India represents over 60 per cent of the country’s total aircraft backlog. In addition, since 2005, Airbus has enjoyed over 60 per cent market share of all new orders.
