Defence News India: European aviation and space giant Airbus Thursday signed a MoU with India’s Adani Defence and Aerospace to collaborate in the field of civil aviation and aerospace sector. The MoU was signed by Anand Stanley, the head of Airbus India & South Asia and Ashish Rajvanshi, the head of Adani Defence & Aerospace at India’s largest defence exhibition Defence Expo 2020 held in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Airbus will collaborate with Adani to explore opportunities for providing aircraft services in India and South Asia. The company estimates that the country’s aircraft services market – maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) – will grow to over $6.3 billion in next five years.
“This MoU demonstrates our commitment to support the development of India as a world-class services hub for aerospace products,” said Anand Stanley, head of Airbus India.
European aerospace giant Airbus has emerged as the world’s largest airliner manufacturer as it grabbed the highest number of orders last year, replacing the US behemoth Boeing, which has been grappling with the controversy arising out of multiple crashes of its flagship airliner Boeing 737 Max.
Gujarat based Adani group is active in infrastructure, mining, power, defence, aerospace and food sectors. The company has been working hard to take advantage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to modernise Indian armed forces with greater participation of private sector.
Recently, the company was ousted from a competition to supply 6 more conventional attack submarines to the Indian Navy.
However, the company is working to capitalise on its strength in airport management. The partnership with Airbus will allow the company to leverage the synergies between the product and services excellence of Airbus and infrastructure, engineering and mega project execution capabilities of Adani.
“India is at the cusp of transformational growth in aircraft services market,” said Ashish Rajvanshi, the head of Adani Defence & Aerospace, adding that the company’s collaboration with Airbus was aligned to its vision of nation building and development of critical indigenous technologies and services in the country.
He said the partnership would create a vibrant ecosystem of aerospace capabilities in the country.
