India-Indigo

[pax britanica]

A little surprised that there isnt much comment on the mega order for Airbus at the Paris Airshow with Indigo following on and trumping Air India with another massive order from india. Great news for ABindustrie of course and for the UK units. Just seems very sad and short sighted that BAe Systems ducked out years ago to focus on the vastly smaller mil market .

Will these developments see opportunities for pilots to work in India or do they have a go it alone mentality -its big country after all .

[HOVIS]

I'm sure the wings are still built at Chester. BAe.

[CAEBr]

I'm sure the wings are still built at Chester. BAe.
Chester was part of BAe but is now an Airbus site, not BAe.
As noted, BAe (as was) opted to concentrate on the military market and will soon be reaping the benefit and profit from the six Tempest airframes that the RAF might just be able to afford, and crew...... .

[Asturias56]

but they don't make their money building aircraft -they make it in incredibly long R&D programmes

[pax britanica]

Asturias

A good point , and who pays for those I wonder. Britain in general should be incredibly proud of its engineering work as a supplier to Airbus Industrie, for once something that truly is world class and world leading as aicraft wings are extremely complicated structures and have a massive effect on performance and economics. It is just very sad that BAe made the decsion that they did and theyare probaly regretting it now with the sheer scale of orders in the market . But not the only case of under investment by the Uk , an issue covered in the Guardian today so unlikely to get much traction on Pprune but makes familair reading.

[Tom Bangla]

Although there is a DIY mentality in India, the bigger issue is that the country will have a pilot deficit. With at least 1,000 new planes due to come on line within the next five or so years, there's no way India will be able to supply enough captains from its own resources, which means that it will have to recruit from outside. There are also questions of infrastructure.

See also: https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/deep-dive/story/missing-captains-why-indian-aviation-is-plagued-by-pilot-shortages-381651-2023-05-17

[Less Hair]

I'm sure the wings are still built at Chester. BAe.

AFAIK the wings for the Airbus A320neo/A321neo assembly line in Tianjin are locally made in China.

[vladut.grecu]

Well as long as they take people from other countries will be good news for some expats also. Might be the new Dubai hub?