First Among Equals

AEQUS'S CHAIRMAN & CEO ARAVIND MELLIGERI HAS  STUDIOUSLY MAPPED THE AEROSPACE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY. TODAY, IT'S A LEADING MANUFACTURER IN INDIA, WITH PLENTY OF EXPERTISE AND FIRSTS TO ITS CREDIT.

- Jayashree Kini Mendes

THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY HAS ITS FAIR share of admirers enamoured by the sight of a large plane on the tarmac or tearing around the sky. But few are infatuated with aerospace suppliers. From makers of engines to small metal components, these companies who are only heard and seen at air shows, prefer to toil quietly behind the scenes. India has millions of such components makers. But only a handful are known, mainly because they stay relatively unknown or work out of tiny machine shops. So a 250-acre SEZ, India's largest integrated facility, and devoted largely to aerospace components, elicits curiosity.

The inquisitiveness emerges because India, as a destination, may be much talked about for its manu facturing efficiencies. But manufacturing aerospace components in such a large campus can come across as overwhelming.

Welcome to Aequs. Set in the sylvan surroundings of Belagavi in Karnataka, the aerospace components manufacturer has created an entire ecosystem to support the manufacturing cycle from start to end of a product. Perhaps, this is the only company in India to have global tie-ups with the giants in the aerospace industry, such as Airbus, Boeing, Magellan, Saab, UTAS, Safran, Dassault, GKN, MOOG, Parkar, Eaton, Honeywell, Bosch, HAL, Fokker Technologies, Liebherr Aerospace, Apollo Aerospace Components, among others. For Airbus alone, Aequs supplies 10,000 titanium parts for the A320neo programme.

But