Touchdown@ Airbus, South-Asia:
An International pioneer in aerospace sector, Airbus leads the industry with designing, manufacturing and delivery of industry-leading commercial aircraft, helicopters, military transports, satellites and launch vehicles along with providing data services, navigation, secure communications, urban mobility and other solutions for customers on a global scale. Laurie Alder, VP, Customer Services - South Asia at Airbus speaks about the need of skilled workforce in commercial aviation, challenges faced while tacking with customer service domain and their expansion plans in India in an exclusive interview with Swati Ketkar. Read On ..
Q - There is global scarcity of skilled workforce, as the fleet size continues to grow on one hand, the need for pilots and technicians will increase proportionately. What is Airbus plan to tackle this problem?
A - Its true that there's a scarcity and massively growing demand for skilled professionals, particularly in India, in addition to an issue of staff retention. We currently have one flight crew training centre in New Delhi hosting one (and very soon two) state of the art A320 simulators, and one maintenance training centre in Bengaluru. Both can provide full Airbus standard courses for pilots and technicians, fully approved by DGCA. This however is far from enough, and we are working on plans to increase our training offerings in India for flight crew (pilots and cabin), ab-initio for cadets, maintenance engineers, and structures, not only for A320. Various options are being considered including partnerships with existing actors in the country.
Q - Customer service in Aviation is an extremely reactive and challenging domain which requires your 24/7 attention. Can you share with us your most challenging experiences so far and how did you solve them?
A - Yes indeed this is a challenging domain, and historically has been reactive, but with new digital tools now available such as Skywise, we are able to convert more and more of the reactive aspect into proactive through Skywise Predictive Maintenance which allows to predict technical issues much more accurately before they happen, avoiding costly maintenance downtime for our customers. We are also enhancing the service of our AIRTAC technical support centre to be able to provide end-to-end technical support including all of the logistics aspects on a 24/7 basis. For some challenging specific technical topics, due to the excellent and diligent co-working with all major stakeholders, including Pratt & Whitney, our customers Indigo and GoAir, the DGCA and the MoCA, solutions are now available to the most significant items that have caused unplanned ground-time for our customers. The fact that we now have our Customer Services team based in New Delhi, closer to these main stakeholders, has helped significantly in bringing about these solutions.
Q - Can you tell us about the MRO services that Airbus provides in India?
A - Through our Flight Hour Services (FHS) and Tailored Support Program (TSP), we offer component on-site stock, pool access, repair, overhaul and component engineering services, plus fleet technical management for our customer Vistara, for guaranteed component and aircraft availability. The word "tailored" means precisely that, our maintenance offerings can include pretty much whatever MRO services the customer wants. We are also considering everything from green-field build through to partnerships with existing actors to develop further MRO offerings in the region.
Q - Airbus has recently opened a new training facility in Delhi. Can you share some of the features of this facility? How is it different from other Airbus facilities?
A - As mentioned, our new DGCA approved flight training facility in New Delhi has two brand new state of the art full flight simulators. We can currently offer A320 full type rating courses, recurrent training, upgrade to command courses, and soon UPRT (upset recovery) and A320/A330 CCQ (cross-crew qualification, a short course whereby A320 pilots can become qualified for A330 and vice versa). How is it different from other Airbus training facilities? Well, it's not, and that's precisely the point! Airbus holds very strict quality and compliance standards for all of our training courses whichever training centre they are performed in, undergo the same auditing process, meaning that all our training centres world-wide are of the same standard. If I had to state one thing that is different from the other training centres, it's the warm Indian welcome at every level from the reception to the instructors!
Q - Can you share the expansion plans of Airbus in the region?
A - Now that we have established our Customer Services team in New Delhi of around 80 people to be closer to our customers in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan & Bangladesh) including core services for continued airworthiness support such as field service, customer support directors and program topics like fleet reliability & maintenance cost optimisation, and services such as training and FHS/TSP mentioned above plus other services like consulting, cabin & systems upgrades, flight operations, connectivity, etc, to best meet the needs of our South Asian customers: for example, more comprehensive regional spares availability through our subsidiary Satair and a broader suite of flight operations software solutions through our subsidiary Navblue, plus leveraging our Skywise data platform to offer digital services enabling our customers to benefit from increased aircraft availability, streamlined flight and airport operations and to enhance the overall passenger experience.
Q - Can you tell us something about Airbus initiative for improving air traffic management in the country? What role does Navblue play in this?
A - Apart from Flight Operations software solutions, most of which are fleet-agnostic, Navblue brings on-board specialised skills in the area of Airspace Management. These skills include optimisation of Airspace design, RNP procedure design and implementation support for all stakeholders, including the regulators like DGCA, Air Navigation Service Providers, AAI in our context, and the airlines. Navblue are the leading PBN (Performance Based Navigation) procedure designers in the world having designed more than 850 such procedures. In the Asia-Pacific Region, Navblue has designed special RNP_AR procedures for Kathmandu and Paro Airports, which are hugely challenging, and continues to develop more such procedures there. Navblue is also redesigning the airspace at Shanghai airport and entire Vietnam. In India, Navblue can provide expert services to AAI during implementation of GAGAN related procedures and improving all-weather access to smaller airports that will be opened up during expansion of Ministry of Civil Aviation's Regional Connectivity Schemes and to get aligned with the ministry's vision 2040 for Indian Aviation.
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