New Zealand's India Trade Mission to showcase aviation training; safety and maintenance capabilities

Mumbai: A country whose national symbol is the flightless Kiwi bird, New Zealand is a high flyer in international aviation and is playing a major part in the development of the sector in India.Kiwi businesses are now training pilots on behalf of Indian airlines;maintaining the safety of Indian aircraft; and providing technologiesthat will help India spread its wings as a leading international player.
From Monday 2 November through Friday 6 November, a thirteen-member Trade Mission headed by peak trade body Aviation New Zealand and comprising leading Kiwi business figures will visit Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai to meet with regulators, the Indian business community and the press.
“The mission aims to deepen aviation business ties between our two countries and highlights New Zealand’s surprisingly large role in helping India realise its future in the skies,” says John Nicolson, CEO of Aviation New Zealand, the peak trade body for the industry.
“Our presence also underlines the international confidence in the strength and commercial opportunities afforded by India’s aviation market.”
Accompanying Mr Nicholson is a consortium that will supply ready-to-fly pilots to meet the requirements of specific Indian airlines and help ease India’s chronic shortage of airline-quality aviators. The consortium members are Kevin England, CEO of Air Hawke’s Bay; Ian Calvert, CEO of CTC Aviation Training; and Chris England, CEO of International Aviation Academy of NZ.
New Zealand is also offering to increase the number of Indian aircraft engines it services through the Christchurch Engine Centre, represented in the delegation by Sales Manager Steve Robinson. And air travellers in India already enjoy the results of the high-tech secure baggage handling systems provided by Glidepath, whose Regional Sales Manager, Rajesh Kalra, will be part of the Mission.
Offering expertise and technological solutions to address Indian needsin maintenance, support and skilled staff are Jennifer Lund, Aviation Training Sales at Air New Zealand Airline Training; and Mike Lynskey, Director Business Development at ASPEQ. Software solutions provided by
Superstructure Group (CEO Ted Thomas) will help reduce and address human errors to improve safety on the ground and in the air.
The visit is the second Mission to India by Aviation New Zealand. Since the first was held in May 2008, New Zealand successes here include growing numbers of kiwi-trained pilots working for Air India and other carriers. Indian graduate students have also taken up work as commercial instructors in New Zealand
There has been a rise in the volume of Indian aircraft engines serviced at the Christchurch Aviation Centre. Kiwi-designed baggage and security systems have been installed in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata with work in progress at Kochi and Indore.
New Zealand has been in international aviation from the beginning when on 31 March 1903, Kiwi inventor Richard Pearse may have successfully flown and landed a powered aircraft some nine months before the Wright Brothers.
More than 800 aviation business now flourish in New Zealand, exporting goods and services worth around NZ$800m (Rs27.8bn) annually, including sophisticated IT and manufacturing enterprises. The country manufactured its 1,000th aircraft in September 2009.
Aviation is a vital industry for an island isolated from the world. This insular geography isolation also makes New Zealand an excellent destination for training pilots and the country’s varied terrain and uncluttered, open airspace mean it is currently host to more than 100 Indian students at 15 flight training centres.
For interviews or further information contact:
Dehli – Sudha Palit, 09810 521 149, sudha.palit@nzte.govt.nz; Mumbai – Daljit Singh Kohli, 09870 124 445, daljit.singhkohli@nzte.govt.nz.
30/10/09 PRESS RELEASE/Trade Mission, New Zealand

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Categories: Foreign Oct 2009