Tuesday will be a special day for Airbus in India. At an event in Bengaluru, British Prime Minister Theresa May will hand over the first flat track beam for an Airbus A-330 to the company. The handing over will mark another landmark for Airbus which completed 40 years in India. Srinivasan Dwarkanath, Managing Director, Airbus India, traces the growth and looks at the future of Airbus in India. Excerpts.

Earlier this year Airbus had sent a statement saying that every Airbus commercial aircraft was partly ‘Made in India’. Can you explain what this means?

We made two statements. First every Airbus aircraft coming out of our assembly line is partly made in India or has something made in India. Now if you look at the Airbus 320, 330 or the long-range aircraft that we make like 350 or 380, there are either assemblies or different parts which are made in India in all these aircraft programmes.

What does that mean for India?

If you take the A-320, the flaptrack teams which are complex assemblies — all the flat track beams of single aisle aircraft — are made in India and dispatched to Europe where they are fitted into the assembly lines and then delivered to the customer. That is a critical one. So for every aircraft programme we have something coming out of India.

Since when has this been happening?

From 2012.

Tom Enders, former Chief Executive Airbus, had said India already played a centre stage role in Airbus’ international activities and the company wanted to further increase India’s contribution to its products. Since the statement was made, by how much have procurements from India increased?

In 2015 our sourcing volume was a little over $500 million. In the last 10 years it has moved up 16 times. From a market perspective and access to talent point of view, what Tom said is very valid. We are looking for more contribution from India to the whole Group.

So you are looking at a four-fold increase to $2-billion sourcing from India in the next four years?

No. In 2015 it was a little over $500 million. Moving forward we are looking to grow not just as Airbus but as a Group. There are other areas like Airbus Helicopters and Airbus Defence. So there will be significant growth depending on how these campaigns materialise. Make in India is at the heart of our strategy.

We do not have any specific volume like to say that we will double it in the next 10 years or something like that. Realistically India is being looked at as every other opportunity when we are increasing our sourcing in Asia.

In the case of China, Airbus started with a production line for the Airbus A-320 which is now being expanded for production of A-330. Are you looking at such a partnership in India?

What is needed in one country may not necessarily be the same in another. If you look at a country like India it is much more important to set up what I would call an aerospace or aero-structure assembly line. What is important in terms of skill development and job creation is the aero structure assembly line.

That is our focus in the country because it is much easier to start with smaller assemblies to develop the eco system before moving on to the major component assemblies whether it is wing or fuselage.

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