State-owned aerospace and defence major Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has decided to pursue its civil aircraft development programme despite the lack of success in the project. HAL plans to put a civil aircraft in the Indian skies by 2022. Even though the company has supplied over 14 Dornier (Do228) and 22 Avro (HS748) to civil customers over the years, their regional transport aircraft plan has not had any major progress. “The civil aviation business in India indicates emerging requirements for 19-seat, 30-seat, 50-seat and 70-seat aircraft as the traffic grows on regional routes. The company has the strategy to address not only the requirements of this emerging market but also the MRO (maintenance repair and overhaul) opportunities offered by trunk route operators,” RK Tyagi, former chairman and managing director of HAL had earlier told Express. Though the company aspires to lead the ‘Make in India’ call by the Prime Minister, significant delays in various projects, including the over 30-year old Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project, are hampering its progress. The company says that the design is already on ‘drawing board’ stage but failure of the Kaveri engine has increased its dependence on procuring an engine from a global Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). Officials said that this is being done to ensure that the aircraft is globally competitive in terms of cost per passenger kilometer. National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) is the other public sector agency HAL is working with for the civil aircraft programme.
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