Aviation opportunities in the air in Bangalore, Hyderabad

Bangalore, the joke goes, is the only place where Boeing ranks above Airbus—because the former’s office is situated one floor above the latter’s in
the spanking new glass building on the Old Madras Road. While it’s not too hard to guess where the joke originated from, on the ground, the competition to be the number one supplier to Indian carriers is quite intense, with Airbus currently in the lead.
If the turf war for the skies is heating up, then Bangalore is the battlefield royale. The city’s rapid emergence as a centre for aviation and aerospace technologies can be attributed not only to the large number of scientific organisations and educational institutes in the city, but also its IT horsepower that is acting as the wind beneath the wings of aviation giants.
Airbus, for example, has had an engineering centre in Bangalore since October 2007. Its engineers, hired from some of India’s top engineering schools, are working on cutting-edge technology that would give Airbus a decisive advantage in the air. The current strength of the centre is around 120, but will grow to 400 people soon.
Boeing, not to be left behind, has set up an research and technology (R&T) centre in Bangalore, which now coordinates the work of more than 1,500 engineers working on projects across various vendors such as Infosys, HCL, TCS and Wipro.
India is the fastest growing market for Airbus, with 68% of its future plane orders coming from this country. Airbus, whose best-known recent models include the double-decker A380, and the forthcoming A350 XWB, is geared up to challenge the Boeing Dreamliner.
06/03/10 Anirvan Ghosh/Economic Times

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2010, New Mar 2010