India’s decision to restart limited domestic passenger airline operations on May 25 is beginning to encourage the aircraft maintenance industry.
The Director General Civil Aviation initially allowed about 30% of pre-crisis schedules to be flown. According to RadarBox, India’s airlines were flying about 3,000 flights per day before the crisis, a level that dipped to about 50 per day in mid-May, as only cargo and other special operations were allowed. By June 17, carriers were putting about 700 flights in the air per day, not quite up to the 900 level allowed by DGCA, but getting there.
And the revival is having its effects. “The limited re-commencement of domestic civil aviation in the country has definitely led to a sense of cautious optimism, both with operations as well as business sentiments,” says D. Anand Bhaskar, managing director and CEO of Air Works, India’s largest independent MRO. “After a gap of two months, the move from a preservation mode into an operational mode is indeed welcome and positive,” Bhaskar adds,
For Air Works, there has been an increase in both scheduled and non-scheduled tasks, as its airline customers rotate and optimize their fleets for the current level of operations. Even business aviation, another Air Works market, is showing a heightened level of activity, including demand for the MRO’s continuing airworthiness management services to ensure aircraft remain ready.
Bhaskar says he has changed the deployment schedule of his engineers and technicians to be in sync with and support the scale of customer’ operations. “Even as we await the resumption of international operations, our line maintenance teams continue to support cargo and repatriation flights from various countries” at 10 airports, he says.
The MRO is continuing to implement employee protections, including daily surveys of workers’ temperatures and an analysis of any virus symptoms, careful rostering, and extended leaves of absence for those in high-risk categories, such as those having comorbid conditions.
The other major Indian initiative, taken just before reopening domestic air travel, is a drive to encourage more domestic MRO, especially locating major engine and component OEM facilities in India, chiefly by slashing taxes on in-country MRO from 18% to 5%. This initiative will take much longer to show any potential effects because of the need of both scale and financial resources---both of which were hit hard by the virus crisis.
GE says it has no current plans to establish engine shops in India. But Pratt & Whitney already had an agreement with Air India Engineering Services Ltd. (AIESL) to conduct initial work on the geared turbofan (GTF) engine. “We plan to expand the agreement to move the entirety of some work to AIESL in the future,” a Pratt spokesperson says. “This will provide greater support to Indigo and Go Air.” AIESL’s introduction to GTF maintenance will be a phased approach, starting with engine upgrade and module exchange capabilities to immediately support the GTF fleet in India. The facility received its first GTF engine in March.
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