Bombardier inaugurates engineering centre in Bangalore

Bangalore, April 17 (IANS) Global transportation manufacturer Bombardier inaugurated its engineering service centre here Tuesday to execute aerospace projects, including aircraft design.

"The engineering service centre here will support the development and production of aircraft in-house with our software and hardware partners in India," Bombardier Aerospace division vice-president Jean Seguin told reporters here Tuesday.

The $18-billion Canadian major manufactures business jets and turbo-prop regional aircraft for multinationals and global commercial airlines besides designer coaches for metro and mono rail services, worldwide.

"Our aerospace engineers, currently 20, will undertake complex aircraft structural designing, advanced stress analysis and project management services. They will also assist about 400 engineers working on our projects with partners like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Mahindra Satyam, Capgemini, Cades and Quest," Seguin said during the inauguration of the service centre.

The company plans to ramp up the headcount in the centre to 50 by 2013 and assist about 4,000 engineers, including 800 of Indian origin, who are working at its main service centre in Montreal.

"Investment in the region will help us in leveraging the local expertise in a market that is becoming important for us in terms of business and outsourcing our hardware/software requirements," Seguin noted.

Though the company claimed that it had sold 40 business jets and commercial aircrafts in India over the years, it declined to share the details on current and prospective orders.

"We have delivered four commercial regional jets to Air India so far and had an order from private carrier Spicejet for 15 turboprop aircrafts of which eight have been delivered," Seguin said.

The company also projected that India has the potential to buy 1,330 business jets over the next 20 years.

"The Asia-Pacific region, including China will have demand for about 4,000 commercial aircrafts in the 20-149 seat capacity during the next two decades," the company said in a statement.