Air India to sign MoU with Boeing for Nagpur MRO

Nagpur, Sep 24 (UNI) Air India and aviation giant Boeing will shortly sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the latter's maintenance, repairs and overhaul (MRO) hub, proposed to be set up in the city.

Speaking to newspersons here today, V Tulasidas, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), that operates the Air India brand, said the draft of the MoU has been finalised and is being studied by Boeing. The MoU will be signed as soon as Boeing approved it, he added.

Air India will be a partner in Boeing's MRO hub at Nagpur, but it has not yet been decided as to how much equity each will hold, Mr Tulasidas said. The two companies have agreed to have a third partner for the project, who is yet to be identified, he added.

''The equity to be held by the third partner can be decided later.

Boeing and Air India could give some of its own equity to the third partner,'' he said.

Air India Express, NACIL's low-cost airline, plans to start flights from Kolkata to Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur shortly, the CMD said.

Mr Tulasidas said the national carrier planned to start cargo hub operations soon at Nagpur with its converted freight aircraft.

The aircraft will fly to Nagpur from the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, and fly back after exchanging cargo here.

The service, on the lines of the night airmail service operated several years ago, will begin after the delivery of Boeing 737-200 aircraft that are being converted into freight carriers, he said.

At present, the company operates freight services from Mumbai to Frankfurt and Paris, while another aircraft carries mail from Kolkata to the North-East, he informed.

Mr Tulasidas and other company officials, including Joint Managing Director Vishwapati Trivedi, were in the city for the launch of the Mumbai-Nagpur-Dubai-Nagpur-Mumbai flight of Air India Express this morning.

UNI