Bell hits helicopter landmark in India

Fort Worth, Texas – Last October, officials from Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. gathered at the Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad, India, to deliver a new Bell 412 EP utility helicopter to K. Gnyandeep, managing director of the New Delhi-based construction firm ABIR Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd.
In choosing Begumpet Airport as the setting for the delivery, Bell Helicopter ensured that it would receive maximum exposure from the Indian press and other, potential customers. On Oct. 15, the same day that Gnyandeep received the keys to the gleaming chopper from Jon Rudy, Bell’s director of business development for Asia, the now-closed airfield welcomed the inaugural Indian Civil Aviation Airshow for a four-day run.
It was a seminal moment for Bell Helicopter, the 74-year-old Texas aerospace firm that developed the Vietnam War-icon UH-1 “Huey” – perhaps the most famous helicopter in aviation history. The 412 model that the company – which is a subsidiary of Textron Inc., a Fort Worth-based, $13.2 billion multi-industry company – delivered to ABIR Infrastructure was the 100th commercial helicopter that it has sold in India. And it came some 52 years after the then-Bell Helicopter Co. sold its first chopper in India. Bell officials marked the occasion by throwing a party underneath a tent on the Begumpet Airport tarmac.
"The combined team of Bell Helicopter, Edwards & Associates (a Bell parts supplier), Bell Helicopter Finance Group, and our [Noida, India-based independent representative, Jubilant Empro Pvt. Ltd.], are proud to deliver our 100th commercial helicopter into the Indian market,” Rudy said. “We have a winning team and are looking forward to achieving the next 100 deliveries in India."
Indeed, the South Asian nation now ranks among Bell Helicopter’s fastest-growing markets; the company sold 17 helicopters in India in 2008, and it expects to deliver another 22 choppers to Indian customers in 2009, according to Bell communications director Greg Hubbard, who added that the company now commands a 50-percent share of India’s commercial market.
6/01/09 Chris Nelson/IndUS Business Journal

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jan 2009