Given India’s ideal geographical position, placed between major Asian and European countries, stakeholders in the aviation industry have been long advocating policy measures which will facilitate India to emerge as a passenger and aircraft maintenance, repair and operations hub in the world.
However, relevant policy measures, especially related to taxation have been long pending and the industry expects Union Budget 2023-24 to address those.
The Covid-19 pandemic gave fillip to Indian MRO companies with the three major players – Air Works, GMR Aero Technic, AI Engineering Services Ltd – undertaking substantial airframe maintenance in the country.
According to industry leaders, the pandemic pushed the Indian aviation sector to test MRO capabilities within the country but post-pandemic the sector needs incentives to remain competitive.
“The key here is taxes and something we have been talking about with the government. It is important that (aircraft) redelivery checks are treated as export business and given the incentives or the treatment that exports business deserves,” according to Anand Bhaskar, Chief Executive Officer, Air Works, country’s largest private sector MRO.
“The challenge going forward is how do we ensure in the post-pandemic scenario we remain competitive as we have during covid,” he added.
Redelivery checks of commercial aircraft are undertaken when they complete their lease period with an airline and are scheduled to be returned to their lessor or deployed elsewhere.