Boeing’s medium & long-term plans for India

Boeing, the largest aerospace company in the world, is completing 100 years next year. As we look to our second century, it’s clear that India is poised to play a pivotal role in the next evolution of Aerospace & Defence (A&D). We’re committed to build an A&D future together with India. Pillars of our partnership with India are: Skilling to build an aerospace ecosystem in India, accelerating our efforts on ‘Make in India’, and supporting India’s defence and aviation customers with Boeing’s state-of-the-art and reliable products and services.

Skilling India for aerospace. Boeing is deeply committed to skilling for the aerospace in India across the entire ecosystem: skilling frontline factory workers who are key to ‘Make in India’, training engineers who will design next-generation aerospace platforms not just for India but for the world, and supporting advanced research and development consortiums with IISc and IITs to push the state-of-the-art.

We launched the second year of skilling for aerospace manufacturing in India in partnership with NSDC. The results are extremely encouraging; the trained workers delivered world-class quality at first-pass. We achieved 100 per cent employment for the first two batches. Encouraged by this experience, we plan to significantly scale it up in partnership with NSDC and the Ministry of Defence. Founded by Boeing with IIT Bombay and GoI’s Department of Science & Technology, the National Centre for Aerospace Innovation & Research (NCAIR) consortium trains and prepares Indian industry for aerospace manufacturing. The Aerospace Network Research Consortium (ANRC) with IISc Bengaluru is another open collaboration that conducts strategic research/co-development of aerospace network technologies.

Accelerating ‘Make in India’. Soon after India’s PM Shri Narendra Modi launched the ‘Make in India’ initiative in September 2014, Dynamatic Technolgies and Boeing inaugurated a plant in Ben- galuru to manufacture critical parts for the Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. In a state-of-the-art facility at a Tata company in Nagpur, Boeing manufactures advanced composite floor beams that form the ‘spine’ of the world’s most advanced aircraft, Boeing 787-9. In July this year we announced a partnership with Tata to manufacture advanced aero-structures and aerial systems including unmanned. We have significantly upped our manufacturing activities in India, more than doubling our sourcing over the last year. Now, over half a billion dollars in product and services from India gets on our airplanes each year and we are working to increase that.

On the engineering side, Boeing has been working with India’s Tier-1 IT & Engineering Services providers with a significant spread of partner engineers and engineering work statements sourced during the past decade. Boeing subsidiaries like CDG and Jeppesen also have a significant and growing engineering footprint in India. To further leverage India’s deep engineering capabilities Boeing also plans to significantly expand its engineering footprint organically in the near term.

Helping our customers win. With 10 C-17 Globemaster strategic airlifters and 8 P-8I maritime surveillance and anti-submarime warfare aircraft delivered, Boeing is helping with the mission-readiness and modernisation of India’s defence forces. C-17s have played a stellar role in numerous relief and rescue missions and P-8Is have enabled the Indian Navy to monitor the vast region of the ocean from the Strait of Hormuz to the Malacca Strait. The recent contracts of 22 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters and 15 CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters further strengthens our position as a longterm strategic partner for India’s defence modernisation. Boeing will also continue to work closely with its defence customers to give superior mission readiness in servicing all our platforms.

India learned to fly on the wings of Boeing. More than 75 years ago, Tata Airlines operated DC-3 aircraft. Since then, with the 707, 747, 777, 737 and the game-changing 787, Boeing has been the mainstay of India’s aviation sector with airlines such as Air India, Jet Airways and SpiceJet. Twenty-one 787s are now with Air India serving them to expand international routes and fuel-efficient operations. Commercial Aviation Services will also be a major focus area in providing our commercial customers a path towards achieving world-class operations.

Across all these areas, Boeing is “bringing the best of Boeing to India and bringing the best of India to Boeing” in a true win-win partnership.