Aviation majors plan supply units in India

New Delhi: Leading aviation companies like Boeing subsidiary Aviall, Lufthansa Technik, Singapore-based ST-Aerospace, France-based ATR, and KLM are planning to set up supply centres for aircraft components in the country.
At present, carriers like Air India, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, SpiceJet, Go Air and IndiGo have to either import spare parts in bulk and stock them or get into lease agreements with various manufacturers.
Depending on the fleet size and its age, airlines buy 30-50 per cent of the components that they need, and take the rest on lease. Expenditure on spares and components is a considerable part of engineering and maintenance, which account for over 9-10 per cent of the total operating expense of an airline.
For instance, Air India, which has a large and ageing fleet, has to provide $35 million-$40 million for spare parts during any time of the year. This figure is close to $4 million for newer carriers like SpiceJet and Kingfisher.
18/04/08 Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2008, Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2008, New Apr 2008