Betting on India?s growing economy, leading Turkish aviation company Celebi Holdings is planning to invest $75.2 million in ground handling and cargo operations in the country this year.
Celebi Holdings chairman Can Celebioglu said the group has chosen India as its future investment and business destination due to its better economic growth and burgeoning civil aviation sector. He said that with most Indian air carriers expanding their international flights, the ground handling market in India is growing and offers more potential opportunities for Celebi.
The $350-million group is looking at all opportunities to bag such contracts for other metro airports as economy of operational scale in ground-handling and air cargo markets will be the key to the company?s future growth in India as it is volume-driven business. Speaking to a group of visiting Indian journalists, Celebi vice-chairperson Canan Celebioglu Tokgoz said the company will contribute to the Indian aviation sector with high-technology equipment and with high quality service and would invest another $100 million in the aviation sector in five years depending on cities and regulations. Celebi, which also provides ground handling services in Budapest, Hungary, reckons that the Indian aviation market is poised to grow bigger with the economic growth and resultant rise in per capita income of Indians. ?The future of passenger transport in India is in the air. Only a small fraction of India?s 1.3 billion people fly by air. India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world and with more per capita income, more will fly.?
And once people fly, they do not normally go back to other modes of transport,? Atilla Korkmazoglu, president of Celebi Holding?s flagship company dealing with ground handling in the Far East, said. The Turkish company expects a revenue of about $100 million from its ground-handling operations in India this year.
Atilla said, ?The aviation market growth in India is good for us. The market in India is more than $100 million. We have a realistic target to take a major chunk in the $60 million-market share in Delhi.?
?We are looking at other Indian cities, particularly with international flights where the profit margin is more than domestic flights,? he said, adding ?soon domestic airlines will see the logic of outsourcing and low cost airlines like IndiGo, looking at reducing costs, will drive the sector.?
Ground-handling covers virtually the entire range of activities relating to an aircraft the moment it touches down at or takes off from an airport like passenger and baggage handling, check-in and boarding, cleaning of planes, aircraft security, handling of warehousing of cargo and providing ramp services.
(Travel for this story was sponsored by Celebi)