GE bullish on growth of wide body aircraft in India as aviation revives

A growth in the number of wide body aircraft bodes well for the US aerospace giant as it manufactures the Boeing 777, 787 aircraft

US-based aircraft engine manufacturer GE is bullish that Indian airlines will order more wide bodies as the industry revives after being ravaged by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

GE engines currently power all Indian wide bodies operated by Air India and Vistara.

“If you look at mature aviation markets like China or the US which have around 4,000 aircraft, the ratio of wide bodies is around 20-25 percent. By that same parameter, India with a fleet of 700 aircraft should have around 140 wide bodies. By 2027, when we are supposed to have 1,000 aircraft, even with a conservative estimate India should have around 150-200 wide bodies. I believe the next phase of growth in India will be the wide bodies,” said Vikram Rai, country head, GE Aviation.

Rai said that the slot constraint at Indian airports is also going to play a role in pushing airlines to have wide bodies. “Airlines will need bigger aircraft to tide over the slot constraint problem,” he said.

Today, every Indian airline is a customer of GE or its joint venture CFM with around 600 aircraft using the GE engines. IndiGo, India’s largest airline in 2019 and 2021, signed deals for CFM LEAP-1A engines for a total of 590 A320 and A321 family aircraft.

A growth in the number of wide bodies bodes well for the US aerospace giant as it manufactures the Boeing 777, 787 aircraft.

All 45 wide bodies in the Indian airlines' fleet use GE engines. “We are talking to all airlines to convince them that a wide body is the future. I believe that the airlines will choose GE as engine provider,” Rai said, adding that it will grow to 2,000 plus engines. “This is more than a 3x growth in the next five years,” he said.

When asked if the growth in GE’s aviation business would lead to more localisation of components by the manufacturer in India, Rai said that it will ultimately depend on the volume of the business. He pointed out that the company already had multiple initiatives for research & development, manufacturing in India.

GE has developed a supply chain network which feeds into the requirement of the company’s business at global level.

There is a multimodal factory in Pune where the company makes engine components for the GE9x engine. In partnership with the Tata group, GE also manufactures engine components for the LEAP 1A engine.

GE’s center at Bangalore has close to 1,000 engineers and also works on future engines which will be commercially produced from 2030.

The engine manufacturer is also a key player in the global aviation industry’s attempt to bring in sustainability.

“Sustainability is our north star. The LEAP engine has a 15 per cent better fuel burn than its predecessor. The GEnX engine has a 15 per cent lower emission than its older model," said Rai.

"We have developed a foam wash program for the 787 fleet of Air India which helps in lowering emissions,” Rai said.

Recently IndiGo, which uses the CFM engines (developed by GE and SAFRAN), did a test flight for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).