With India emerging as one of the most promising markets for the civil aviation industry, the two top air craft manufacturers of the world appeared gung-ho on their plans for the country.
While Boeing, the biggest supplier of aircraft in the country said that India will need another 1,740 new aircraft over the next two decades, the European manufacturer Airbus said that the country will need 1,600 new passenger and freight aircraft over the same period of time. Airbus has in fact upgraded its forecast keeping in view the impressive growth of civil aviation sector in the country.
The officials of the two global players came out with this promising projection at the India Aviation 2016, the international exhibition and conference of civil aviation currently on in Hyderabad.
Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president (Sales), Asia Pacific and India, Boeing Commercial Planes told a Press conference on the sidelines of the event at the Begumpet airport on Thursday that the value of the 1,740 new aircrafts required by India will be at $240 billion. 1,460 of these will be single isle while remaining 15 per cent will be wide bodied. These projections conform to the aggressive plans drawn in India by the Government to provide air connectivity to the Tier II and Tier III cities beyond the big metropolitan cities.
Pointing out that the fuel as percentage of operating cost of airlines in India came down to 23 percent in February 2016 from 49 per cent in January 2013, Keskar said that it was still higher compared to the fuel cost of the US Airlines. “Indian carriers were still paying over 50 per cent more fuel than the US carriers”, he said.
Keeping in view the needs of customers such as India, Boeing was developing new fuel-efficient airplanes, Keskar said.
He said that the fuel prices and the exchange rate continue to driver the airline and operating cost and profitability of airlines of airlines. The domestic passenger traffic in India was at the level over the last five years and the airlines in India were returning to profitability as lower fuel prices and increased load factors were driving the recovery.
However, the exchange rate was an area of worry as the rupee was declining steadily since mid 2014.
Giving the comparative figures Keskar said that the number of domestic air passenger shot up to 80 million in 2015 to 66.4 million in 2014.
Boeing’s plans for India were also in tune with the policy of Indian government to promote India as a hub of MRO or maintenance, recovery and overhaul operations. “We have met our commitment and the MRO facility built in Nagpur has been handed over to India”, he said. The state of the art facility has the capacity to serve two wide body Boeing 777 and six narrow body 737 Aircrafts.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashol Gajapthi Raju had said yesterday at the inaugural ceremony that the government was aiming to bring back $700 million worth MRO business to India.
Meanwhile, at a separate press conference a top official of Air Bus said that India will require 1600 new aircrafts worth $224 billion over the next twenty years. Boost Van der Heijden, Vicve President, Marketing, Asia, Air Bus told the media today that his company received 250 new orders last year excluding the orders of now defunct Kingfisher Airlines which shut the shop last year.
The orders include 250 A320neo aircrafts by Indigo, the biggest civil aviation order and 72 aircrafts of the same make by Go Air.
Air Bus global market forecast also projected that Indian air traffic was set to grow by 8.4% per annum for the next 20 years, almost double the world average of 4.6%. The domestic Indian traffic will go up by 9.3% and it will become world’s leading emerging aviation market, the report said. “Over the next years one Airbus Aircraft will be delivered per week in India”, he said.
What makes Airbus even more optimistic and elated over the India growth story was the fact that 56% of India’s in service fleet were the aircrafts from the Airbus stable. The air travel by Indian passengers was likely to increase four fold by 2034, according to the company’s projections. By 2035 the number of Indian cities with more one million monthly air passengers was also likely to triple, he added.