Aerospace industry leaders from global OEMs joined together recently to assess the capabilities of BMT Aerospace in India and understand how next-gen manufacturing capabilities align with this evolving landscape. With the Indian government’s push for self-reliance and the rapid expansion of the aviation sector, India presents a significant growth opportunity. To understand more on the plans of expanding its footprints in India, Benoit Reynders, CEO, BMT Aerospace in an exclusive interview with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World discuss in details about the present capability, its sister concern IGW in India, future plans of investments and expansion and many more topics.. Here are the excerpts of the interview:

What does BMT Aerospace manufactures and what presence does it has into India?

Let me start off with a quote, “I would say every two seconds in the world there is an aircraft taking off with parts of the BMT Aerospace.” We are a company which is specialised actually in making geared parts and we have presence into three locations, Belgium, the United States and Romania.

We are the single source, first tier to Airbus for making the rack and the pinion, which goes into the slat system. So the full slat on an Airbus is made by a Belgian consortium, where BMT Aerospace makes the rack and the pinion which are having teeth and are actually the most important part to move the slat in and out, which generate more lift when it’s operating at lower speed. That’s the first very important part we are making.

Secondly, we are active almost on all important jet engines in the world. In the jet engine, there are gears on three locations. You have the inlet gearbox, which is part of the central axis so that driving power, you need to take that. It goes through via the inlet gearbox, through the transfer shaft or the drive shaft to the AGB. The gears which are provided on the AGB, so the inlet gearbox and the AGB auxiliary gearbox which are very important for the aircraft because they generate all kinds of electricity or power to the aircraft. The gears which are sitting in there, BMT Aerospace provides them for most of the well-known engines in the world.

We talk about the LEAP engine through Safran; Pratt & Whitney engines, the GTF; the Rolls-Royce engines. We provide both for commercial as well for military platforms as the F-35, F-16, and so on, where we provide these gears. And then as a last platform, we manufacture gears for helicopter systems.

What’s the expansion plan of business presence in the future in India?

First of all, it’s not BMT Aerospace, which is active for the moment in India. Its sister company which is part of the same holding called IGW( Industrial Gears Watteeuw) , a global manufacturer of gears and gearboxes and which is making today already around 30,000 gears a year out of India.

These are industrial gears that are used in agriculture but not yet aerospace gears. As a company, BMT Aerospace believes that the Indian market will be one of the prime aerospace markets in the future. And it’s going to be very important to be able to support OEMs like Safran and other players there locally.

A couple of weeks ago, the big players like Safran, Honeywell and others joined us to look at our industrial facility and to see what we have there and to see the potential we have as a company. We would like to start these aerospace activities as soon as possible, or starting as a greenfield by our own, close to our sister company or with a partner. We’re still investigating what is the best option for us, the best way.

We are talking to some partners as well as we speak, but it’s not a secret that BMT Aerospace will start aerospace activities in India. Of course, it will take a bit of time because the quality and the technology used is not that simple. We will start with simple gears, try to have some volume there to get the people know and acquainted with the process and then start growing and do more complex gears for complex gearboxes.

In which part of India you are looking forward to expand or make your presence? Are you also in touch with state aerospace department?

We are looking at two locations in India, first at Pune and second at Bengaluru. We visited our own site with our customers in Pune, where they have a special economic zone for aerospace activities. We are not in contact with the government, but if we would do big investments ultimately we will be in contact with the government.

And then we are looking as well, last week we were in Bangalore, where we have been visiting some possible partners that we could join with.

Would it be a part of Make in India initiative?

IGW is already part of Make in India initiative and I believe that it fits right away in there as well. We want to produce in India because we believe that India is an emerging market, the country has very smart engineers.

What kind of investment that you are looking at in India and second, how about employing the Indians?

First of all, to put a full aerospace integrated plant we need to look at an investment around 50 million, 50 million Euros. That’s a full plant but of course, you don’t do it at once. We will be gradually build up that plant in due course within 5 to 10 years of time line. We will start to build up capacity starting with simple gears and then moving up the chain more difficult gears.

On the employment side, for the kind of investment of around 40-50 million Euros, we would approximately require around 200 people blue collars workers in such a plant. That’s a bit the numbers we have, the factors we have in Europe.

What are your thoughts on India as an aerospace market?

I believe that India has to take quite a bit of steps when it comes to industrialization but everything is there. I’ve been travelling for many years to India now and every time I go there I see the change. I believe, it’s just a matter of time of coming to that level where the market is ready also to provide aerospace parts and be part of that ecosystem of aerospace engineering and aerospace manufacturing.