Mint Quick Edit | Tata-Airbus C-295s: An Indian aircraft industry next?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez on Monday inaugurated the Tata Aircraft Complex in Vadodara, Gujarat, where India’s first privately built C-295 aircraft will be made by a Tata-Airbus partnership. It’s a military transport plane and India is to receive 16 of these in fly-away condition directly from an Airbus plant in Spain, while another 40 are to be made in Vadodara.
These aircraft will replace India’s ageing fleet of Avro 748s. This project could support India’s ambition of acquiring a civilian aircraft industry. “This factory is going to play a major role in the design and manufacturing of civil aircraft to meet the future needs of India and the world," Modi said.
Domestic demand is projected to soar, no doubt, but it would require heavy capital investments, the sort the government might have to subsidize. The world’s Boeing-Airbus duopoly is difficult to challenge partly because the duo’s sunk costs, largely borne long ago, have been spread across a large number of planes made over several decades. They still have an edge on economies-of-scale.
Read more on livemint.com
