New Delhi: Boeing will ramp up its sourcing from the country from current $1 billion annually. Boeing India president Salil Gupte has told TOI that Prime Minister Modi’s recent US visit has “certainly laid the groundwork for engine manufacturing” in the country.
Boeing and Airbus have together bagged firm orders for 970 aircraft worth $120 billion in the last four months alone from Air India and IndiGo. Boeing may additionally get a significant wide body order from IndiGo which is testing these waters with two Boeing 777s wet leased (hired with operating crew) from Turkish Airlines.
Asked if Boeing will put a commercial airplane final assembly line in India, Gupte said: "We continue to evaluate the business case for assembly and rate increases as demand for our products grow. Volumes required for final assembly of commercial airplanes are far greater than that required for defence, and a business case would require a large regional market."
"Boeing is already the top foreign aerospace and defense company in India when measured by the more than 5,000 engineers and other skilled staff we employ in India, and the further 13,000 employed by our suppliers. Our supply chain footprint extends to over 300 local companies and $1 billion spent annually on local sourcing," Gupte added.
Boeing’s sourcing from India at the moment is over $1 billion (Rs 8,200 crore) per year, of which roughly two-third is manufacturing, making it the biggest original equipment manufacturer (OEM) importer from here. Over the last 18-24 months it has signed an additional $1 billion worth of contracts. While these contracts are spread out over several years, the sourcing from India will grow significantly in the next 2 to 3 years.
“We have been at the $1-billion level of sourcing from India for the last 2-3 years. During this pandemic time, aeroplane production rates went down significantly. While globally sourcing dropped in that period, in India it we stayed flat at a billion dollars. So you can imagine how fast the growth here was even when aircraft production rates were lower. Now as those rates increase, India will ride that wave up,” Gupte said.
India, the world’s fastest growing aviation market, is keen that both Boeing and Airbus set up FALs here. With Prime Minister Modi’s push, the country is getting the ecosystem for defence side. Last year, Tata and Airbus decided to jointly make the C-295 transport aircraft for Indian Air Force in Gujarat. Modi’s recent state visit to Washington saw US major GE Aerospace signing a pact to jointly make fighter jet engines in India. These defence aviation ecosystems and supply chains will provide the groundwork for civil side manufacturing and FALs.
03/07/2023 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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