Indian Business Aviation Expo 2012 - 21/02/2012

We heard at the 2011 event that India's GDP growth will average 8.7% in the period 2012/13 to 2015/16 and India will be the 6th largest economy and 3rd largest aviation market by 2020. By 2050 India will overtake the US to become the 2nd largest economy after China.

Rising incomes are leading to rising aspirations and as the commercial aviation sector comes under increasing strain due to infrastructure constraints, there will be inevitable growth in business jet sales. Embraer estimates the market in India to 2020 to be worth $9 billion, which translates into 360 additional business jets to the current fleet.

However, there are impediments to growth of the sector and the current regulatory process is complex and bureaucratic. Although the Director General of the DGCA declared at IBAE 2011 that he was ready to engage with the business aviation industry, the administrators and executive branch have not yet done anything to simplify the process of buying a business jet, or reduce the time it takes to secure landing permits.

Delegates at IBAE 2011 learnt that the Asia Pacific region would lead the recovery in the business aviation industry with the region accounting for 16.7% of global revenues. The region would start to take an increasing share of the growth in business aviation as the US lost ground as the dominant force in GA and business aviation. As if to underline the changing fortunes in the new world order, news came in as the event closed, that Cirrus is to be brought by the China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co (CAIGA).

It was left to our Day 2 keynote speaker and one of the richest men in India, Naveen Jindal, Member of Parliament and head of Jindal Steel, to provide a vision of how business aviation will develop in India. Pledging his financial and moral support to the Business Aviation Association for India (BAAI), he called on other industry leaders to join with him in influencing policy and to provide a better understanding of the scope and importance of business aviation in terms of growing the Indian economy.