After many years of delay, aircraft major Boeing is expected to handover the much-awaited maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility at Mihan SEZ in Nagpur to national carrier Air India by March, according to a state government official.
"The construction of entire infrastructure, including the 1.8-km-long taxi-way and the MRO facility is completed. We expect the handing-over procedure to be completed by March," Maharashtra Airport Development Company General Manager for Marketing S Sitarasu told PTI.
Sitarasu said the USD 100-million MRO facility should start commercial operations by early April, if the handing over process gets completed by March.
The Nagpur MRO facility, fully built by Boeing and is spread over 50 acres, is the offshoot of an agreement between Air India and Boeing following the massive Dreamliner orders the national carrier had placed with the US company in 2006.
So far the project, which is expected to be a revenue churner for the loss-making national carrier, has missed several deadlines due to land acquisition and regulatory issues. Its previous deadline was March 2013.
Last time, it got for delayed as the MADC had failed to complete the construction of the 1.8-km long taxi way, which will link the airport with the MRO facility.
Touted as one of the most modern MRO facilities in the subcontinent, the MRO will service aircraft such as B-737s, B-777s and the Dreamliners of both domestic as well as international carriers.
Air India, however, will be able to use the facility for free as part of Boeing's offset obligations.
Also, the facility will have two wide-body hangars and a GE90/GenX engine overhaul shop.
The national carrier had, last year, hived off its MRO unit into a separate business entity, Air India Engineering Services and placed around 7,400 of its workforce under it.
Besides undertaking the in-house maintenance, repair and overhaul of the Boeing aircraft, the MRO facility will also fetch business from third-parties to make the subsidiary viable.
The total Indian MRO market currently stands at USD 800 million, which is expected to touch USD 2.5 billion mark by 2020.
Air India expects to clock around Rs 500 crore revenue from its MRO business in the first year of operations.
With the growth of domestic and international traffic in and around the Asia region, the airline was hopeful of ramping it (revenue) up to Rs 750 crore in 2015-16, a senior Air India official had said recently.
