Home

Reserve Hotels in New Delhi Reserve Hotels in Agra

  Aviation News

Back to Index

Boeing expects higher demand in India

    Mumbai: The Boeing company said here on Tuesday that it expects higher demands in India due to significant improvement in airport infrastructure in the country. Addressing a press conference, Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president of sales, commercial airplanes said, "looking at the context of infrastructure improvements in the sector, the numbers of people that are flying and the plans of airlines that are operating, we believe we will revise our estimate upwards in the next four, five months. The Chicago-based aerospace company also revised its forecast for India's civil aviation market to reflect faster growth. However, it warned that delays in infrastructure improvements could hobble the pace of expansion.

    Boeing had said last August it expected India to buy 492 aircraft for about 36 billion dollars over the next 20 years as foreign investment rules in the sector are relaxed. Boeing has also said it would consider India's participation in design and manufacture of aircraft parts in the long term. The company has committed to spend 100 million dollars on maintenance, repair and overhaul facility, 75 million dollars on a pilot-training facility and 10 million dollars on incremental facilities. It will also source 85 billion rupees (1.9 billion dollars) in products and services over a period of 10 years. "It (investment) is up to 100 million dollars in MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul), up to 75 million dollars in pilot training and up to 10 million dollars on issues related to civil aviation issues in India," said Keskar. "The purpose of doing all this is to improve the infrastructure in the areas that Boeing can help. Boeing cannot go and build an airport but we can certainly help with training of pilots and maintenance of the aircraft," he said. The Boeing team is evaluating capabilities of six locations from the states Including Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and West Bengal. India's domestic air travel market is forecast to grow more than 20 percent a year over the next five years as incomes rise and fares fall with new carriers entering an increasingly crowded space. Airlines flew an estimated 19 million domestic passengers in India in the year to March 2005. India has fewer than 200 civilian aircraft, compared with 750 in China and more than 6,000 in the United States.
-Jan 31,  2006

Back to Index

List of Leading Indian News Papers