Airbus, one of the leading manufacturer of aircrafts has made a forecast that air passenger traffic in India will grow over the next 20 years as fast as the world average and to meet the demands of this growth the country will need 1750 aircrafts.
The projections were made by the top officials of the Airbus at a media conference on the sidelines of the Wings India 2018, the biennial conference of civil aviation in Hyderabad on Friday.
Joost Van Der Heijden, vice president, Marketting, Asia and North America said that the aircrafts India would need will include 1320 single aisle and 430 wide bodied aircrafts valued at $255 billion. “By 2019-20 India will become the third largest aviation market in the world”, he said.
Airbus now had the bigger share of Indian market with 60% of in service fleet and 70% of the order backlog , he added.
According to the projections of Airbus the domestic air passenger traffic in India will register an average annual growth of 8.1% over the 20 years against the global average of 4.4%.
“Domestic Indian traffic is expected to grow five and a half times over the next 20 years (2017-36) reaching the same level as US domestic traffic today making it one of the fastest growing markets”, Airbus’ India Market Forecast said.
While much of the air traffic was expected to be driven by the fast expanding economy, rising wealth and urbanisation, ambitious Government backed regional connectivity programmes are also set to enhance demand for air travel.
“By 2036 Indians will each make four times as many flight as today”, the forecast said.
The company also projected that on an average one Airbus aircraft will be delivered to India every week for the next ten years.
Noting that to meet this growth India will require 24000 new pilots and maintenance engineers, Dwarkanath said that the construction work of Airbus’ Flight Training Centre in Delhi will start next month where 800 pilots will be trained.
Srinivasan Dwarkanath, President, Airbus Commercial Aircraft, India said that every commercial aircraft of airbus was partly made in India as the company’s sourcing from India had increased 16 times over the last ten years, companies sourced the parts and services worth $3 billion over the last three years and it stood at $ 550 million last year. The sourcing has created 6000 jobs directly or indirectly across India. The sourcing will increase further as the company was looking for the opportunities to work with more partners specially in designing, innovation and emerging technologies.
The engineering and IT services companies partnering with the Airbus include HAl, Infosys, Wipro among others. HAl had provided 6600 front passenger doors to the Airbus, he added.
“Make in India is at the heart of Airbus India strategy. Airbus has the largest footprint in India of any international aircraft manufacturer, nation wide across all aircraft programmes”, said Dwarkanath.