Recently, we partnered with GMR Aero Technic to establish a Boeing Converted Freighter (BCF) line in Hyderabad, while also setting up a Global Support Centre in Gurugram to provide customised operational efficiency and safety improvement projects for airline customers, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders. Additionally, Boeing has invested in a new India Distribution Centre to provide efficient and cost effective service solutions to regional customers, ensuring higher fleet utilisation and mission readiness rates.
We are further building on the advanced engineering and R&D work performed at Boeing India Engineering & Technology Centre (BIETC) in Bengaluru and Chennai. Boeing is investing $200 million in a new 43-acre state-of-the-art wholly owned engineering and technology campus in Bengaluru, which will be Boeing's largest facility of its kind outside the United States.
Commercial and defence aerospace support
Boeing's deep partnerships with India support, both commercial and defence sectors. The continued development of civil aviation in India has been marked by advances such as Akasa Air's order for 76 737 MAX airplanes and Air India's 290 Boeing airplanes order, with the first few already delivered to Air India Express — bolstering the company's ability to serve India's civil aviation needs.
Boeing's ongoing partnership with Air Works Private Ltd. promotes the indigenisation of sustainment services and continues to repeatedly demonstrate Air Works' maturity and scale on par with developed global MRO hubs.
Boeing investments in India extend beyond manufacturing. We recently committed a $100 million investment in infrastructure and training programs to produce skilled pilots in India, aligning with the country's aviation growth over the next 20 years.
We have been working with our partners on various skill development programs that span the breadth of the aviation and aerospace industry. We have partnered with our customers and supply chain partners to offer training opportunities to pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, technicians, and frontline factory workers throughout India. More than 4,000 workers have benefited from these initiatives.
The Accelerated Apprenticeship Program seeks to increase the employment prospects of aircraft maintenance engineers. In collaboration with AI Engineering Services Limited and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Boeing has established a state-of-the-art training centre in Mumbai that offers a customised curriculum designed by Boeing experts, as well as access to advanced training aids. In 2022, Boeing collaborated with Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA), a premier flight training organisation under MoCA, for opportunities to enhance safety and quality in early career flight training. It is an important step in advancing aviation training in the country through collaboration with flight training and development organisations to enhance capabilities and safety.
Furthermore, Boeing partners with not-for-profits like Learning Links Foundation (LLF) to help create a skilled and employable workforce for the aerospace manufacturing sector. Recently, Boeing concluded the Boeing Safety Management System training course at the Indian Aviation Academy in New Delhi. This was the first inperson event delivered in India by the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in collaboration with the DGCA.
As India and other countries worldwide tackle the environmental crisis, Boeing is participating in initiatives and partnerships to help address the long-term sustainability of commercial aviation. These efforts include collaborating with SpiceJet and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research - Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) to test and certify domestically produced sustainable aviation fuel. As a member of the World Economic Forum's Clean Skies for Tomorrow (CST) initiative, Boeing contributed to the first report "Deploying Sustainable Aviation Fuels at Scale in India" in 2021 as a starting point for public-private taskforce to design an implementable policy framework for decarbonising aviation in India. As a key contributor to this report, Boeing helped determine that ~10 per cent of India's SAF needs by 2030 can be met through domestic production. We also completed a 10-year road map for Airports Authority of India to help modernise its Communication, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management system.
