Airbus mulls ATR final assembly in India |

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Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturing major, indicated that it may set up a final assembly line for its 50 percent-owned ATR regional aircraft, The Times of India (ToI), India’s largest English daily, reported on Thursday.

This is the first time that the European aircraft manufacturer has indicated that it may set up an FAL in India. The newspaper report, however, did not state its source, and there is no official statement from Airbus on this development.

Incidentally, it was the ToI that broke the story of the Embraer, a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, setting up a FAL in India. Days later, on January 27 this year, Adani Defence & Aerospace, a player in India’s aerospace and defence, and Embraer signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop an integrated regional transport aircraft ecosystem in India.

In India, IndiGo operates about 50 ATR aircraft while FLY91 has a fleet of six ATR aircraft. FLY 91 hopes to double its turboprop fleet this year. Air Alliance is also a customer.

India’s association with Airbus started in the late 1970’s

India and Airbus have an association dating back to 1975. In the book `Airbus: The true story’ by Pierre Sparaco, the author quotes Robert Esperou, assistant to Bernard Lathiere the then head of Airbus, saying that Lathiere “had his tricks of the trade, and for example”, Esperou recalled, “he almost wore out his old photograph, wearing shorts, next to Mahatma Gandhi, on the boat that brought them both to Europe.”

While Gandhi, the Father of the Indian nation, was in London to attend a conference, Lathiere was going there for a family holiday. Lathiere’s father represented several large French firms in India when the country was still under British rule. The book adds that this photograph was to play a major role, a few months later, with a decisive decision by Indian Airlines (IA). On April 24, 1975, IA ordered three Airbus A300-B2 and took an option on three more. Since then, the European aircraft manufacturer’s footprint in the country has grown with IndiGo, which has 63 percent of the Indian domestic market and largely operates Airbus aircraft, as does Air India, which has a market share of about 20 percent in India.

Airbus Board visits India for the first time in 2025

The news of Airbus considering an FAL in India comes months after Airbus’s entire Board visited India in October 2025.

The Airbus Board meeting came just days after Airbus announced that it would manufacture the H125 helicopter in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. In addition, a factory to produce the C-295 defence aircraft is being established in the Western state of Gujarat by Airbus and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL), a subsidiary of the Tata Group.

Indian companies play a key role in the manufacture of Airbus aircraft

Indian companies play a key role in helping Airbus and Boeing manufacture their aircraft, as both source parts from a variety of Indian suppliers. In January 2024, TASL and Mahindra Aerostructures were chosen to manufacture metallic detail parts, components, and assemblies for Airbus’ A320neo, A330neo, and A350 programmes.

The two companies are already among more than 100 India-based suppliers that provide components, engineering, and digital services for various Airbus programmes. This came in the backdrop of Dynamatic Technologies being awarded the contract for making doors for the Airbus A220 family the previous year.

Similarly, Dynamatic Technologies is building on its existing contract with Airbus to supply doors, including the manufacture of detailed parts. It also produces Flap Track Beams (FTB) for the Airbus 330 family and is a Tier 2 supplier for the assembly of FTB for the Airbus A320 family (wings).

Aequs supplies Airbus with detailed parts, both hard and soft metals, for wings and fuselage sections, as well as forgings and structural assemblies.

Tata Advanced Systems is providing wing components, including longerons, stiffeners, leading- and trailing-edge panels, front straps, and outboard flaps, for the A350 global supply chain.

Then there are global suppliers who supply to Airbus through their Indian subsidiaries, including Raytheon Technologies, which supplies the cargo loading and evacuation systems. The The

The Indian government boosts regional connectivity routes, which are typically operated by turboprop aircraft

The development of Airbus, looking to set up a FAL in India, comes on the day of the Indian announcement of a modification to its regional air connectivity scheme (RCS) for a period of 10 years, with a budget outlay of Rs 0.3 trillion. ATR made note of this.

Airlines will be provided Viability Gap Funding of Rs 100.43 billion over the next 10-year period to operate flights under the RCS. The scheme, which runs from FY 2026 to FY 2036, will focus on underserved and unserved regions, the government said.

The Indian civil aviation authorities categorise an airport to which there are no more than seven scheduled commercial flight departures a week according to the latest flight schedule by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as an ‘underserved airport’ while an `unserved airport’ is categorised as an airport to which there has been no scheduled commercial flights during the last two flight schedules published by the DGCA.

Since its launch in 2016, the RCS scheme has seen more than 340,000 flights and more than 16 million passengers. The scheme was launched with the objective of making air travel affordable and strengthening connectivity to towns and cities in India.