Airbus’ cooperation with India offers the benefits of cost-competitiveness and a highly-skilled workforce, and is fully aligned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” campaign to further develop the nation’s manufacturers, according to Dr. Srinivasan Dwarakanath, President of the Airbus Division at Airbus Group India.
“I’m proud to say there’s something ‘made in India’ in every one of our aircraft being produced today,” Dwarakanath added.
One of the largest Indian partners is Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), which produces approximately half of the A320 Family’s forward passenger doors. HAL began supplying Airbus in the 1990s.
Dynamatic Technologies in Bengaluru has been the sole supplier of A320 and A330 Family flap track beams since 2008, delivering these assemblies on which the wing flap surfaces extend and retract.
Tata Advanced Materials Ltd provides composite parts for the A320 and A350 XWB wing, while TAL Manufacturing supplies over 500 sheet metal and machined parts and sub-assemblies.
Supporting these major suppliers is a growing network of small and medium-sized companies, all being developed with Airbus’ encouragement to reach ramp-up capacity. CIM Tools, Gardner-Pranitha, Triveni and Sansera Aerospace are some of the better-known of these second-tier suppliers.
The Airbus Engineering Centre in Bengaluru, which opened in 2007, is home to over 350 engineers who work across programmes and divisions. The city also hosts a BizLab accelerator, which helps Airbus speed up the transformation of ground-breaking ideas into valuable business propositions.
In addition, Bengaluru is the nerve centre of the Emerging Technologies & Concepts team, responsible – among other things – for running Airbus’ Protospace rapid prototyping facilities. Since 2011, Airbus has operated two design centres in the city for fuselage and wings/pylons in partnership with the Indian companies AxisCADES and QuEST.
“Made in India” components are flying on the expanding number of Airbus jetliners operated by Indian airlines, including the A320neo (new engine option), which has just entered the inventory of IndiGo – India’s largest airline by passenger numbers. IndiGo has ordered 430 A320neos, making it the largest customer for this aircraft type, with the airline acquiring 530 A320 Family jetliners in total.
Airbus press release
