The C295 project alone involves the manufacturing of 13,000 detail parts with 37 Indian suppliers. While these are military projects, they're crucial for developing an aerospace ecosystem and transferable skills for passenger aircraft programs.

Tata is also setting up India's first private helicopter assembly line in Karnataka's Kolar for the Airbus H125 helicopter.

This ecosystem will only grow given the significant export potential in aerospace component manufacturing. Currently, India's aerospace exports are valued under USD 2 billion, with ambitions to increase this tenfold and capture 10 per cent of the global aerospace supply chain market. Global giants like Airbus, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce are increasingly sourcing from India, attracted by cost advantages (15–25 per cent savings), skilled talent, and the need to diversify supply chains.

Rolls-Royce, for instance, plans to double its sourcing from India, and every commercial Airbus aircraft already contains Indian-made components.

India is already becoming a reliable supplier of high-quality aerospace components. This ecosystem can build expertise, gain experience, and gradually move up the value chain, with the same ecosystem then feeding Indian civilian aircraft programmes.

At the same time, India must also internalise a key lesson from China’s experience. While leveraging Western sub-systems may be essential in the short term, it must simultaneously invest in building indigenous alternatives. Otherwise, it risks facing the same vulnerability COMAC now confronts — having finally developed a reliable commercial aircraft, only to be denied access to the very foreign technologies it was built around.

Another crucial lesson India must learn from China is the importance of sustained, long-term funding for such an aircraft project.

A half-hearted effort like the Saras programme, which was allowed to drift at its own pace and effectively shelved after a prototype crash in 2009, cannot serve as a viable model going forward.

Robust state support has been a cornerstone in the growth of nearly every major aircraft manufacturer in the relatively short history of global aviation.

For instance, Airbus has benefited from over USD 22 billion in subsidised European financing, which was instrumental in launching its A380 and A350 jets.

While government-led initiatives are crucial, a new private-sector entrant, LAT Aerospace, is signalling a potentially disruptive and innovative approach to bolstering India's regional air connectivity. The venture is co-founded by Surobhi Das, formerly Chief Operating Officer at Zomato, and Deepinder Goyal, Zomato's founder and CEO.

Currently operating in stealth mode, LAT Aerospace aims to develop a 24-seater passenger Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) aircraft with a planned range of up to 1,500 kilometers. The core innovation lies in the STOL capability, enabling these aircraft to operate from very short runways or “air-stops” potentially as compact as a parking lot. This dramatically reduces the reliance on extensive and costly traditional airport infrastructure.

LAT Aerospace's vision is ambitious: to “make air travel as accessible as bus journeys,” connecting underserved destinations with high-frequency, affordable flights.

By targeting intercity routes with aircraft that require minimal ground infrastructure, the startup could revolutionise regional connectivity in India, offering a nimble alternative to traditional carriers and potentially complementing the objectives of regional connectivity schemes such as UDAN.

The global aviation industry is witnessing a significant push towards electric and hybrid-electric aircraft, driven by the goals of reducing emissions and operational costs. Ventures like Electra.aero in the US are already flight-testing hybrid-electric STOL demonstrators capable of operating from very small areas with reduced fuel burn, showcasing the technological feasibility. LAT Aerospace's focus on hybrid systems aligns with this global trend.

Aircraft development is a notoriously long, capital-intensive, and complex process, involving rigorous design, extensive testing, and stringent certification phases that typically span many years. However, a focused STOL design tailored for specific regional needs could easily carve out a niche for itself.

India need not mirror China, but it cannot afford to ignore the playbook or the pitfalls.

Prakhar Gupta and Aryan Jain

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