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With the much-delayed Dreamliner having finally landed and ready for induction into Air India's fleet, Boeing is all set to complete its other delayed project — its MRO facility at Nagpur.
The construction of the $100-million project will be complete by December 2012 . “We expect to get the DGCA certification thereafter and operationalise it by the second quarter of 2013”, said Mr Dinesh A. Keskar, President, Boeing India.
The Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) facility at the Mihan-SEZ, was slightly delayed due to problems of land acquisition. Boeing got possession of the 50-acre land two years ago. It started construction work on the two hangars in January 2011. More than half of the work has been completed at the greenfield project, he told Business Line .
The MRO is the result of Boeing's commitment when Air India purchased 68 aircraft from the aircraft major in 2005-06.
The facility will carry out checks and maintenance of Boeing 777 and 737 aircraft with the Indian carrier. In addition to meeting the needs of Air India, the facility will also have the capacity to take care of the needs of regional airlines.
R&D Centre
Boeing is also ramping up its capabilities in the R&D Centre in Bangalore. At present about 30 professionals are working in three major areas — materials, computational fluid dynamics and network systems. “We will add good numbers in the next one year”, he said.
The model is partnership work. The Centre is working with the IITs, National Aerospace Laboratory and Indian Institute of Sciences at Bangalore, on some frontline projects.
One interesting initiative is the work on RFID, which has several applications in the civilian aircraft industry, Mr Keskar said.
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