India Approves Purchase of Airbus C-295 Military Transport Aircraft

India Approves Purchase of Airbus C-295 Military Transport Aircraft

India’s defence acquisition council tonight cleared a proposal by Airbus Defence & Space and its Indian partner, the Tata Group, to procure C-295 military transport as a replacement for the Indian Air Force’s  Avro fleet.

The Airbus-Tata team was the sole bidder to replace Indian Air Force’s (IAF) fleet of 56 Avro aircraft fleet with C-295 military transport carrier.

In May 2013, the Ministry had issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) to original equipment manufacturers including US firms Boeing and Lockheed Martin, European multinational Airbus Defense and Space, and Antonov of Ukraine among others.

They were required to tie-up with an Indian private company under which 40 aircraft will be produced here while 16 will be bought off-the-shelf.

However, only Airbus Defense and Space and Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) consortium had bid for the proposal in October last year.