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Global and regional market analyses, including
industry challenges, strategic recommendations
and enduser perspectives have all made Air Works
India Engineering Pvt. Ltd sit up and take stock.
And the result is acquisition, joint ventures,
building new facilities and attracting prospective
customers. India’s largest MRO is actually on
the move.
“We have a 60 year impeccable track record of
safety and manage 100 aircraft of 50 different
types across 15 locations in India. With a 35
percent market share we are India’s only MRO with
multiple OEM ASF (Authorised Service Facility)
approvals from Agusta, Bell, Bombardier, Dassault,
Gulfstream, Embraer, Hawker Beechcraft, Honeywell
and Rockwell Collins,” said Vivek N Gour, its
Managing Director.
Air Works is a well funded organisation and
is looking to grow its capabilities as well as
footprint. Its strategic intent is to focus on
taking the business global and grow it in the
region. Hence they are actively evaluating partnership/acquisition
opportunities and expect to close 1-2 deals in
the next 12 to 18 months, he said.
And the talk of the town is the acquisition of
the Delhi based Inter Globe General Aviation earlier
this year. “This acquisition has allowed us to
have a significant presence in the northern region
of the country where 30 percent of our GA customers
currently come from. We have added to our kitty
a world class hangar, factory trained manpower
and a dedicated customer base which helps us further
consolidate our position in the Indian GA MRO
market. Moreover, we have added HBC certification
to our kitty and are also getting ready to obtain
EASA approval for our GA facility which will be
a first for India,” Gaur informed.
The entry of international aviation companies
with Indian partners into the MRO scene looks
like a threat to Air Works’ supremacy in the field
but the company doesn’t feel so. “We believe in
having a healthy competition and would welcome
such partnerships. However, we strongly believe
that given our strong customer relationships,
large Indian footprint and 60 years of impeccable
safety record will make it difficult for a competitor
to dislodge us from our market leadership position.
We are also actively investing in tooling, factory
training of manpower and OEM authorisations, which
we believe will help us stay ahead of competition,”
stressed Gaur.
 On
being questioned about Indian carriers continuing
to send aircraft abroad for high-end checks, the
company informed that this is largely driven by
lack of existing capability with MRO’s in India
in the past. Air Works has done an information
campaign about its capabilities for their existing
and prospective customers. With Air Works now
committing resources on behalf of the customer,
a gradual shift of the customers to trust the
MRO with higher checks on their aircraft is being
seen.
“Almost all our customers are repeat customers
and we lose less than 2 percent of our customers
to competition. However, there are a few customers
who end up relying on low cost quick fix solution
to their maintenance practices. We expect this
segment of the industry to function in parallel,
however, gradually diminishing in size as customers
are able to quantify the benefits of higher maintenance
spend in reduced AOG downtime and greater life
of components to proper preventive maintenance
activity,” he said.
Equity funding of about 1,250 million rupees
from two, top-tier private-equity funds, NEA and
Elephant Capital, has made the already robust
health of the company healthier.
It also has a joint venture, SA Airworks India,
with Scandinavian Avionics of Denmark to provide
complete turnkey avionics solutions to both commercial
and military customers in India. Air Works last
year acquired UK-based Air Livery to become one
of the world’s largest providers of aircraft paint
services. Gaur says the facility set up at Mumbai
will leverage repainting, interior repair and
refurbishment expertise of UK firm Air Livery,
Europe’s largest aircraft refinishing company
- which Air Works controls via an 85 percent shareholding
– and also adhere to stringent global standards
similar to those of Air Livery’s UK operations.
Air Works currently derives 20-30 percent of
its revenue from heavy maintenance and is expected
to take this up to 50 percent over the next 3
years. They are currently making significant investments
in training of manpower and tooling apart from
increasing the scope of our approvals. Very recently
it completed a 12 yearly structural audit on a
Hawker aircraft which was a first for India. “Also,
our customers have been encouraging us to perform
complex checks in India thereby reducing their
costs of a ferry flight to an ASF facility outside
of India as well as allowing them to benefit from
a competitive rate in India,” said Gaur.
The company has a well developed training calendar
for the engineering staff which is a function
of aircraft type. Specific trainings are held
by aircraft type and are certified both by the
OEM and by the regulator DGCA. Typically each
engineer invests ten percent of his man-hours
every year in training and certification.
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