Airbus floats India subsidiary

Appoints Srinivasan Dwarakanath as CEO of Airbus India

Airbus has created a fully-owned subsidiary, Airbus India, with costumer-facing centres in New Delhi and Mumbai, to manage its Indian footprint.

The subsidiary will include strategy, customer services and procurement teams. A maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility will be established at a later date. The Airbus Engineering Centre India (AECI) is in Bangalore.

Srinivasan Dwarakanath (Dwaraka), responsible for setting up Airbus' industrial footprint in the region, including the AECI and Airbus Training India at Bangalore, has been appointed chief executive of Airbus India and Charles Champion, executive vice-president (engineering), as chairman, the company said on Tuesday.

Kiran Rao, Airbus executive vice-president (strategy and marketing), said, "India has one of the world's greatest aviation growth potentials and, with an abundance of engineering talent, is a strategically important market. Airbus has been extending its industrial cooperation partnerships with India since the early 1970s, and today Indian engineering and manufacturing companies nationwide representing 5,000 contribute to all Airbus aircraft programmes.”

At present, Indian carriers operate a fleet of over 170 Airbus aircraft. Airbus’ current market share of sales in India represents over 60 per cent of the country’s total aircraft backlog. In addition, since 2005, Airbus has enjoyed over 60 per cent market share of all new orders.The cumulative turnover of Airbus generated work in India has tripled over the last three years (over euro 250 million in 2013) and is expected to grow significantly in the next 10 years.