The Hindu Business Line : HAL eyes MRO pie at old Bangalore airport

Readymade
The HAL-owned Bangalore airport, with ready hangars, fuelling and other infrastructure necessary for an MRO unit, handles 300 landings in a day.

Bangalore , Nov. 3

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd is preparing the ground to turn its currently operational airport at Bangalore into an aerospace MRO facility for civil aircraft by the time it closes down civil flight operations in April 2008, its Chairman, Mr Ashok Baweja, said here.

Without giving likely investment figures, Mr Baweja said HAL was in talks with Airbus and its main providers of MRO services (maintenance, repair and overhaul) and has completed a project assessment with these potential partners. HAL was also open to domestic private investors in the MRO activity, he said.

The Rs 5000-crore-plus defence PSU is already offering some of these services to the military aircraft. This would move it into the civil MRO space too.

The HAL-owned Bangalore airport, with ready hangars, fuelling and other infrastructure necessary for an MRO unit, handles 300 landings in a day. It generates revenue of Rs 150 crore for HAL and the MRO business could match the returns from airport operations.

It will be shut down once the greenfield international airport being built by the Siemens-L&T consortium begins operations from Devanahalli, 40 km away, from April 2008. "We have to start now," he said.

Ventures with P&W

The two proposals in a tie-up with aeroengines major Pratt & Whitney would be sealed shortly, Mr Baweja said.

One of them is to make precision components for aeroengines. As part of it, the two will work together on a unit for static parts in Bangalore and another in Koraput for rotating parts.

These would produce limited varieties of flight-critical, high-value parts for aircraft customers, the HAL CEO had earlier told Business Line.

Another prong of the collaboration with P&W was to set up a joint MRO facility at the HAL facility on Old Madras Road to service engines of turboprop aircraft.

For the engine component units, Mr Baweja said, "All clearances have been made and the prices fixed. We are in the last stages (of finalising the deal). It could mean a $500-million business in 10 years" going by the current aviation upswing across the region.

The capacity expansion at Koraput alone for this would involve an investment of Rs 80-90 crore.

HAL already has a composites centre with P&W, with a substantial package coming from the North American engines major in the form of technical inputs, quality systems, training and exchange of professionals.

A similar 50:50 components making venture with French engines major Safran (merged entity of Snecma) has generated revenue of Rs 40 lakh so far this year, he said.

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