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Beechcraft, a manufacturer of general aviation
and military aircraft, has built more than 54,000
aircraft and more than 36,000 are still in operation.
The company, which emerged from bankruptcy earlier
last year, has estimated revenues of $1.8 billion
last year. Textron, the parent company of Cessna
aircraft, has agreed to acquire Kansas-based plane
maker Beechcraft Corp. for $1.4 billion. “Textron
will fully support the Beechcraft brand. The transition
team is in place, synergies are there and there
are no conflicts in the product lines of both
the companies,” he said.
He also explained that the fractional ownership
of business aircraft is not a recognised model
in India but there is the concept of shared ownership
and around eight to ten aircraft have been sold
on this model. There are major issues on fractional
ownership with regulatory authorities and taxation
bodies in India. The fractional model is slowly
being recognised in a lot of countries and we
hope someday India will recognise it too.
Beechcraft has a positive and bullish long
term outlook for India. It is one of the fastest-growing
aviation markets globally, and the company expects
to see demand for efficient, flexible and reliable
business aircraft to continue growing in the coming
years. India has recognised the significance of
business aviation as a key segment of the civil
aviation sector. The planned improvements to the
current airport infrastructure and regulations
will facilitate
that growth while allowing Indian businesses and
the entrepreneurial community to compete more
efficiently on a global basis.
As far as co-development and co-production is
concerned, Beechcraft has done some work with
Mahindras in the past but at the moment they have
no existing Indian partner for production of parts.
The US manufacturer hopes to do something on these
lines in the future. Emery said that the FAA downgrade
does not affect Beechcraft’s business in
India and they will continue marketing it as before.
In India, from a distributor since 60 years, Beechcraft
now has a committed office and continues to look
at it as a growth market. “Growth in India
will be from both corporate as well as government
sales. We have both the national and the state
governments as prospective clients in mind,”
he stated.
He was positive of the changes in the domestic
legislation and is confident that the regulators
will continue to make the changes needed to cater
for the growth of the general and business aviation
sector. Insisting that these regulatory hindrances
are commonplace in developing markets, which need
to meet the demands of increasing activity in
the aviation sector, Beechcraft is hopeful of
the growing business aviation sector in India.
Fixed base Operations may not be far off possibilities
Beechcraft feels.
“One of Beechcraft’s largest growth
segments is special mission applications, and
some of the most popular are surveillance, air
ambulance and high density configurations. Furthermore,
King Airs can also be used to satisfy a vast range
of special missions in India, such as flight inspection,
aerial survey and mapping, air ambulance, weather
and atmospheric research, intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance (ISR) and maritime patrol.
These missions can be carried out efficiently
at a fraction of the cost of larger, more expensive
aircraft typically used for such activities. We
are hopeful of impressing the military and para-military
in India with our capabilities which suit their
requirement.” Emery stated.
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