India and US set to collaborate on aviation

The Midas touch of Uncle Sam

Aviation

May 12, 2018

/ By / Mumbai



Rate this post
The Boeing AH-64 Apache is an American warcraft that is popular in India

The Boeing AH-64 Apache is an American warcraft that is popular in India

Moving in on US’ aircraft manufacturing potential, aviation minister Suresh Prabhu has sought cooperation from one of the largest aircraft manufacturing markets while AAI signed a billion dollar contract.

A report that studied the Global Aircraft Manufacturing Market 2013-17 and 2018-22 stated that North America is the largest market for the aircraft manufacturing market. Needless to say that the second largest North American country, the United States of America (US) maintains a lead in the aircraft manufacturing for both commercial and military purposes. The report states that the US is the largest market in terms of value and in the aircraft manufacturing market. As such, aviation minister Suresh Prabhu has sought cooperation from Uncle Sam for the production of civil and defence aircraft in the country during the sixth US-India Aviation summit in Mumbai. The summit was hosted as a technical, policy and commercial forum by the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation and the US Trade and Development Agency. The summit held from May 9-11 focussed on bilateral meeting while including sessions on India’s projected aviation growth in next five years, aviation security, aviation and runway safety, technologies for worldwide airspace management, and regional connectivity using linking hubs for underserved/unserved airports.

While stating that India will be eager to collaborate with the market leader for local manufacturing of civil and defence aircraft, Prabhu also said, “There are many areas of mutual interest that we need to discuss, such as how do we make passenger and defence aircraft here locally; how do we make drones by collaborating with our US partners.” He added that cooperation will offer great business opportunities to American companies already present in the country.

The summit also saw the signing of an INR 9.45 billion contract between the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and US-based technology firm, Harris Corporation. The 15 year contract was signed in the presence of officials of the civil aviation ministry and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) during the sixth edition of the bi-annual US-India Aviation Summit.

The contract involves developing futuristic telecommunications programme that can prevent unwanted situation affecting air safety and air traffic. Senior officials present at the summit stated that deal will help to introduce a more modern system that will eventually play an integral role in deployment of remote towers for managing air traffic services at airports under the central government’s Regional Connectivity Scheme.

Dr Guruprasad Mohapatra, chairman, AAI said, “India’s exponential air traffic growth is creating demand for new aircraft, air navigation technologies, airport security equipment and infrastructure,” while adding, “The futuristic telecommunications infrastructure provides a dedicated nationwide telecommunication network to support air traffic management operations, with an emphasis on safety and high reliability and the ability to expand for growth.”

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

0 COMMENTS

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *