Top Executives from Boeing, Airbus, Air India, Indigo, McKinsey, Fortinet, Collins Aerospace, discuss key opportunities in the sector, including MROs, drones, and the application of AI, ML & Big Data for airline operations
20 April, 2024, Bengaluru: Over 300 senior executives from the aerospace and aviation sector participated in the 2024 edition of the International Conference on the Future of Aviation and Aerospace, hosted by IIM Bangalore and Toulouse Business School France, here today. The conference had keynote addresses and six power-packed expert panels on subjects, ranging from MROs to drones to talent management in the aviation sector.
In his welcome message, Prof. Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore, said, “Over the last 50 years, IIM Bangalore has emerged as one of the leading institutions for business management. The recent QS World University Rankings has placed IIMB at #32 globally. It is a pleasure for us to host this conference given that we have several faculty members and students with a keen interest in the aviation sector. Our General Management Programme for Aerospace and Aviation Executives is very well received by industry.” Observing that India is a growing hub when it comes to traffic, MRO (Maintenance, Repair, Operations), engineering, aircraft acquisition and more, Prof. RT Krishnan said IIM Bangalore is proud to be contributing to the country’s further evolution as an aviation hub in the world and wished all the participants a rewarding conference.
Conference Chair Prof. G Shainesh welcomed the dignitaries – Consul General of France Thierry Berthelot, Prof. Christopher Benaroya, from Toulouse Business School France, the top leadership of IIMB, and the participants. “The purpose of the conference is to get a sense of where the industry is and where it is heading in terms of transformation and progress,” he said.
Prof. S Raghunath, Conference Chair, gave an overview of the General Management Programme for Aerospace and Aviation Executives, offered in partnership with Toulouse Business School (TBS) France and which has close to 350 alumni to date, thanked TBS for being a supportive partner. “As this industry grows, the focus on sustainability and e-zero is also growing. Additive manufacturing is making a huge difference in terms of intricate components. We hope to look at both opportunities and challenges in this sector at the conference, today.”
In his opening remarks, Prof. Christophe Benaroya, Toulouse Business School France, said, “There is a tremendous growth in the sector, expectations from customers have grown exponentially and there is tremendous pressure from the point of sustainability. We must stop being ashamed of what we do as a sector – connecting people – and work on challenges like pollution. We continue to live in turbulent times, but these are also great opportunities for researchers and industry players.”
Prof. Padmini Srinivasan, Chairperson, Executive Education Programmes, IIMB, welcomed all the speakers and participants to the conference, and spoke of the offerings of IIMB in terms of Executive Education.
In his inaugural address, Sunil Bhaskaran, Director, Air India Aviation Academy and former MD & CEO of AirAsia, congratulated IIMB and TBS for the collaboration which, he said, “adds value to skilling in the aviation sector in India”.
Address by Consul General of France
In his special address, the Chief Guest, the Consul General of France, His Excellency Thierry Berthelot, described the conference as a very good initiative, and said the fact that it happens every year since 2017 proves its relevance and value to the industry. “Aviation is a key element in the strategic partnership between India and France. There are French majors located in Bangalore and they are concrete actors in this industrial cooperation between the two countries. The two political leaders of France and India, in their joint statements, during the State visit by President Macron during India’s Republic Day in January 2024, have talked about the importance of aviation in the roadmap for 2047, and pledged to work on low carbon energies and sustainable aviation fuel.” HE Berthelot also invited students from India to France to pursue higher studies. “Currently, there are just 10,000 students from India in France; we hope to enhance that number through partnerships and incentives,” he added. Interestingly, IIMB, which has close to 100 global student exchange programmes, has a third of them with B-schools in France.
C-suite executives and researchers discussed a variety of topics including Impact of Macroeconomic Environment on Aviation and Aerospace; Future of Global and Local Aviation Market; Drone Sector – The Way Forward; MRO – Opportunities and Challenges; Managing Talent in the Aviation Industry; and Cyber Security, AI and Analytics in the Aviation Industry.
The Macroeconomic View
The first panel on ‘The Impact of Macroeconomic Environment on Aviation and Aerospace’ featured Prof. Chetan Subramanian, RBI Chair Professor of Economics at IIMB, Dr Srinivasan Dwarakanath, Former CEO & MD, Airbus India Operations, and Kallappa Pattada, Executive Director, Boeing India Engineering.
In his presentation on the Macroeconomic View, Prof. Chetan Subramanian highlighted some of the headwinds like COVID, inflation caused by shortage of supply, wars and elections, and their connection with the aviation sector. Harking back to the COVID period, Prof. Chetan Subramanian said, almost every economy in the world, except China, experienced negative growth rate or contraction of the economy. “The last time the Indian economy experienced contraction was in 1979. This is significant because India is a young economy and when it contracts, it grapples with unemployment.” From 2021 onwards, there was a spectacular recovery in India, but it prompts the question: where would the economy have been had COVID not hit? “We will probably take up to 2034 to get to where we should have been,” he said. Examining the airline sector, he said it mirrors this trend. “However, the good news is that India is a consumption-driven economy (driven by domestic demand), it has a demographic dividend (in 2022, the median age of the Indian population was 27 years, believed to be at the peak of its productivity and with high purchasing power), and it has a rising middle class (with rising purchasing power). This is all good news for the aviation sector,” he observed, adding that low investment remains a challenge, especially in the aviation sector, which the government, he said, is “addressing on a war footing”. He listed low penetration in the domestic sector, MROs, repossession of assets, and lack of talent as challenges in the sector.
Dr Srinivasan Dwarkanath discussed the impact of black swan events like COVID, geopolitical challenges, currency rate, and regulatory environment on growth in the aerospace and aviation sector. “India’s contribution is less than 1 per cent of the global aerospace supply chain. We ought to be at 10 per cent in 10 years. We need to increase our value add, we need to focus on product design, IT and manufacturing, we need to strengthen DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) and we need to develop an aerospace roadmap,” he said.
Kallappa Pattada listed all stakeholders in the sector, focused on the role of government, and compared India and Japan in the aerospace sector. “Japan is heavily focused on sustainability while in India, we are still working at addressing a capacity crunch. We are still focused on building airports, buying aircraft, building MROs so we are in a different phase of growth,” he said.
Future of Global and Local Aviation Market
The panel on the ‘Future of Global and Local Aviation Market’ featured Dr Srinivasan Dwarkanath, Former CEO & MD, Airbus India Operations, and Sunil Bhaskaran, Director, Air India Aviation Academy, and was moderated by Prof. S Raghunath. “Asia Pacific will have about 46 per cent of all new aircraft delivery over the next few years. The strongest growth will come from the developing part of Asia (India and China) and the Middle East. But India at 20 years will still be less than where China is at today,” Dr Dwarkanath said.
Sunil Bhaskaran, who spoke of the trends that will define the shape of the airline industry in the years to come, listed customer-centricity, data and analytics, sustainability, distribution capability, fleet and network, alliances and partnerships, and talent.
Way Ahead for the Drone sector
Amber Dubey, Senior Advisor, McKinsey & Company, and the man who piloted the drone policy for India as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt of India, congratulated IIMB for being the only management school in India to conduct such a global conference where “aviators get to meet at least once a year”. He gave a brief overview of the evolution of the drone sector in the country and the policies governing it. “The aviation sector in India needs a huge round of applause for the way it responded to the pandemic – carrying vaccines, testing kits, masks, relief, supplies, and more. The pandemic also gave a big boost to the drone sector in the country when drones were sent to remote villages in mofussil areas in the country during the locust attacks, at the same time, and prevented large-scale destruction,” he said.
“The drone sector has grown exponentially, especially for use in agriculture. We were aiming at ‘har haath mein phone; har khet mein drone’. Women practising agriculture in villages are given training free of cost and incentivized to use this technology. The biggest benefit of drones is the ability to supply of medicines in remote areas. But the biggest issue continues to be with security and tracking,” he added, urging youngsters to come forward to contribute to policy design around security concerns. “There should be collaboration between the private sector, the government, start-ups and young people with a passion for technology for the drone sector to grow and evolve,” he said.
‘Fly Net Zero by 2050’
The panel featured Chris Krishnaswamy, Systems Engineering Principal (Digital 145), Sasikumar Muthusamy, Senior Director, Global Engineering at Collins Aerospace, and Uma Maheshwar, Chief Consulting Engineer, GE Aerospace Engineering India, who discussed the challenges that disruptive technologies must overcome to reach net zero goals. “There are opportunities, but they are not simplistic. There are technology-driven and resource-driven disconnects, too. Senior technicians are making important decisions without knowing the impact of their decisions. The skills required by this industry need a complete relook,” said Chris, suggesting that technology disconnect can be solved by empowerment and enablement. Sasikumar focused on energy sources, infrastructure and investment in his presentation while Uma Maheshwar spoke of SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel), key sustainability solutions through breakthrough technologies and the costs associated with these solutions.
The Era of the Evolved Employee
The panel comprised Suraj Chettri, VP & Head of HR, Airbus, Ruchi Dhawan Sharma, VP and Head HR, Indigo, and Prof. Christophe Benaroya, Head – MSc Program in Aerospace Management, TBS. “The only differentiator for organisations lies in managing talent. This calls for leadership, skilling and mindset shift as we are dealing with evolved employees post COVID,” said Suraj. “Talent acquisition is a challenge as the pool of trained talent, be they pilots or engineers, is very limited in this sector. Retention is another challenge as high turnover and attrition can disrupt flight schedules. So, it is important to know employee pulse,” said Ruchi.
Prof. Benaroya spoke of how HR has gone from describing people as workers, then as employees, later as collaborators and now as talent! “All sectors face a talent crunch so collaboration between large organisations, like it is being done in Germany, could help in sharing resources and cost,” he suggested, adding that hiring should go from experience-based to potential-based hiring, which means training becomes important.
High Stakes in the Sky
Vishak Raman, VP – Sales, India and SAARC, SEA & ANZ, Fortinet, said the future of air transport is digital, so there is a critical need for next generation firewalls and securing the aviation industry. “Digital innovation is causing increased risk as cyber threats take advantage of disruption,” he said, outlining solutions like platform-based approach, Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and deployment of AI in cybersecurity. “You need more visibility and control not just on your IT set up but also on your OT set up as networks are becoming increasingly flatter,” he added.
More on GMAE
The Executive Education Programmes Office at IIMB, in partnership with TBS, has been offering the General Management Programme on Aviation and Aerospace since 2015. As part of this collaboration, IIMB and TBS jointly host the International Conference on the Future of Aviation and Aerospace as an annual event that brings together industry experts, researchers, and policymakers to deepen the understanding of the current state and future of the sector.
More on the GMAE programme here: https://eep.iimb.ac.in/course/general-management-programme-for-aerospace-and-aviation-executives-gmae-9/?utm_campaign=L23005&utm_content=GMAE
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