HAL ready to make more doors for Airbus

State-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) is looking for more orders from aerospace major Airbus to make passenger doors for its civil aircraft which are operated by global airlines worldwide.

"We are ready to take up more orders to produce special doors for single-aisle aircraft of Airbus, as we have already delivered over 2,500 ship sets during the last 25 years," HAL chairman T. Suvarna Raju said here Friday.

Though the defence behemoth primarily manufactures various types of military aircraft and helicopters for the Indian armed forces, especially Indian Air Force (IAF), it has been producing some equipment for civil aviation firms in domestic and overseas markets.

"We began supplying 600 ship sets of doors to Airbus since 1990 under an agreement as one of its major suppliers," Raju said at the Aero India 2015 trade expo, being held at the Yelahanka base of the IAF in the city's outskirts.

Airbus fits HAL's doors on every alternate single-aisle aircraft and one of its doors is in operation every five seconds globally.

Components of the door include machined beams and cross-members that are joined to build the box-type structure.

The company's aircraft division has a direct link with Airbus to access data for customising the doors, which are delivered to the latter's final assembly line at Saint-Nazaire in France.

Airbus India chief executive Srinivasan Dwarakanath presented Raju with a certificate of appreciation of partnership between the two firms on the occasion.