The customer training centre of Pratt & Whitney, an arm of the US-based United Technologies Corporation, will start operations from the third quarter of next year. The company has begun construction work on the site in Hyderabad on Thursday.
“It will be ready in about nine months. It will be handy for our customers in India, the Gulf and South Asia,” Palash Roy Chowdhury, Country Manager (India) of Pratt & Whitney, said.
Addressing a press conference after the ground-breaking ceremony, he said it would be the third training centre after the Connecticut (the US) and China centres. “It will have a capacity of 10,000 student days (the number of days all students spend at the institute in a year) and it can address the needs of our customers in the region,” he said.
He said the centre would be helpful for Indian carriers, particularly the low-cost carriers as they can reduce the time taken by their staffers.’
MRO industry
Palash Roy, who heads the aviation panels in AMCHAM and FICCI, said that the cost of repairing and overhauling in India was much higher than that of Singapore and Sri Lanka, forcing the airlines to fly to those destinations to service their planes.
“The cost of manpower in India is cheaper by 15 per cent than in Singapore. But heavy taxation (VAT, Service Tax, airport royalties and customs duties) make the total cost of servicing 25 per cent higher. As a result we are losing 90 per cent of $700-m worth MRO business,” he said.
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