Kiran Rao | Govt has to stop thinking of aviation as an elitist thing

Bangalore: Aircraft manufacturer Airbus S.A.S, which has delivered 200 airplanes in India and has another 400 on order, claiming an 80% market share, is looking at selling 2,000 airplanes by 2030 in the country. It is well ahead on its offset deals, which it says are about long-term partnerships going beyond merely fulfilling offset obligations. And while Airbus already has a growing engineering centre in Bangalore, it is now looking to set up an “innovation cell” in the city. It has appointed Ardhendu Pathak, who previously was the global leader-advanced development at GE Industrial Solutions, to lead the effort. Kiran Rao, president Airbus India, said in an interview the innovation cell is not a sub-division of a global Airbus initiative but the headquarters of a worldwide effort to drive futuristic thinking on where aviation is headed. Edited excerpts:

What role is Bangalore playing in Airbus globally, and have your efforts here borne fruit?

But it was a long-term arrangement for us. The offset was cleared many years ago, but we kept on increasing the orders. Today, HAL makes 15-20 sets per month, half of the production for A-320s. Aircraft doors are quite intricate, like a watch, with its locking and pressurization mechanisms and so on. That was our introduction to cooperation with India.

During the course of the 1990s, we did small projects and ventures, including into the IT (information technology) world with Infosys, where they were involved with Airbus UK, which builds wings. Infosys was doing engineering analysis on wing design on all Airbus planes.

The industry naturally has to be conservative in introducing partners. Then we thought an engineering centre would be a good idea. Then came the 2005 deal (from Air India) for 43 aircraft, and that idea became part of the offset once again. We were given 12 years after the last plane was delivered to fulfil offset obligations. It is two years since we delivered the last aircraft, but we are already 88% done. And like HAL’s doors, we will keep going. Dynamatic (Technologies Ltd), for example, makes flaps.

The centre has now grown to around 300, and we are looking to go to 400 soon. It is not back-office engineering. Here, we are developing the software tools that engineers all over the world will use to do structural and aerodynamic analysis, and for virtual testing of entire aircraft systems.

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Kiran Rao says that after coming to Bangalore to source parts, the company’s new centre in the city will fundamentally rethink the airplane itself.

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We also partner with Quest and Cades here on wing and fuselage work, on what we call creating repair schemes. When an aircraft is being produced, or when it is in service, if there is an issue with a part, either because of damage or any other reason, it can’t just be fixed arbitrarily. You have to create a repair scheme and that comes out of here.

And now you are setting up an innovation cell?

Yes, and the Airbus Innovation Cell is not just a sub-division of anything in Europe. The actual headquarters is here out of Bangalore. Today’s planes fly with fossil fuels, with standard wings and engines, but what is it going to be like in 2020, in 2050? The objective is to have some deep thinking on all the aspects of aviation—not just planes, but their interaction with airports, with passengers. Thinking that has no boundaries. Then that thinking gets consolidated and presented to the entire engineering community, everything from in-flight entertainment to how the pilot is going to fly the airplane. It will be headed by Ardhendu Pathak.

Why Bangalore to head it? Is it just wage arbitrage?

We have always seen India as not just a place to sell airplanes into. Of course, as a market, Asia is growing, not the US and Europe as much. Last year, 15% of all planes sold was sold in India. Now the emphasis is to see what we can do to partner. We now have joint ventures with CAE (for) making simulators, and we will soon have a second training centre for pilots in Greater Noida, and also for engineering training. We already do maintenance training not just for deployment in India but for Asia.

The true number for us to sell in India is 2,000. Take my word for it, though the official number is 1,043.

The 2,000 that we see will essentially still be airplanes based on today’s technology. It has been estimated that from the first idea to the last aircraft being dismantled is 80 years. That is the kind of timelines we are talking about. The oldest Airbus still flying, say the old A 310s, may be 30 years old. It has to be like that—when you have aircraft flying at 41,000 feet, at 500 miles an hour, you want everything to be well-thought through. And any new aircraft programme is a minimum of €10 billion, nothing less than that.

What about all the pressures on the aviation sector?

The government has to stop thinking of aviation as some sort of elitist thing that takes place.

It is an important part of the economy. And infrastructure is important, and things have to go quicker if infra has to catch up with the speed at which India can actually grow.

Bangalore airport is good but already too small, for example.

sridhar.c@livemint.com