Air India Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL), which was recently hived off from national carrier Air India, is in advanced level of talks with Indian Navy to provide maintenance and engineering support to the latter’s aircraft.
H R Jagannath, executive director (engineering), said the navy officials came to check their facilities thrice recently. Even AIESL officials has made several presentations regarding the same. “The response so far has been good” said Jagannath.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar on maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) on Thursday.
Navy has some of the most advanced aircraft in its fleet, including BAE Sea Harrier, Tupolev Tu 142, Mikoyan MIG-29K and Dornier Do 228.
AIESL was carved out of Air India earlier this year in a bid to turn around the national carrier. Around 6,500 employees are said to be part of this new venture, which is seeking to increase its focus on the maintenance of third-party aircraft.
“Many of the third-party airlines are already our clients and we are seeking to provide the services to new entrants like AirAsia and TATA-Singapore airline,” said N Nanda Kumar, GM (engineering),AIESL.
Speaking at the event, Bharat Malkani, CMD of Max Aerospace and Aviation, said the list of different taxes in India on MRO add up to around 32%, which is acting as a deterrent to its (MRO) growth in India. Service tax, value added tax, royalty to Airport Authority of India, custom duties, etc, eventually gets passed on to end users, he said.
“On the other hand, foreign countries realise the importance of MRO facilities in giving a push to aviation sector and are, therefore, taking steps to promote it,” said Malkani.
Experts said this is the reason why the airlines prefer to send their aircraft to places such as Sri Lanka and Dubai for maintenance rather than to an MRO in India.
Amber Dubey, partner and head of aviation sector at KPMG, said, “High taxes on MRO are also driving away tourism from the country.”
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