Editor’s Note

Pratt & Whitney, the leading American aerospace manufacturer, has been manufacturing aero engines that are widely used in civil aviation across the globe. In its journey towards efficient sustainability, Pratt & Whitney formally unveiled the GTF Advantage engine programme recently. Classified by the original equipment manufacturer as the world’s most fuel efficient and sustainable engineto power single-aisle airliners, launch of this new engine is regarded as the “next revolution of GTF”. This issue of the magazine carries a detailed report Ayushee Chaudhary on this new product.

Commercial airline business in the Middle East has developed, over the past many years, into a major and thriving industry with major hubs located at Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the airline industry in the Middle East as well. Currently, the airlines in the region are embarked on attempts at recovery from the downturn with migration to fleets of more fuel-efficient and versatile aircraft. Emirates is moving to a simplifiedfleet of smaller airliners, Qatar Airways is planning to acquire airliners of smaller size and Etihad Airways is positioning itself as a mid-size airline. This issue of SP’s AirBuz carries a detailed analysis by Byron Bohlman of the changes that are underway in the airline industry in the Middle East region.

Just as it was beginning to revive after the end of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian aviation industry is now suffering from the adverse impact of the third wave of the pandemic that could well prove to be rather crippling. This issue of SP’s AirBuz carries a detailed article by Isha Jaiswal on the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline industry and the measures that need to be adopted both by the industry and the regulatory agency. In another article on the subject, the author Sukhchain Singh focuses on the debilitating impact of the pandemic on the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) segment of the industry and the measures needed in the post-COVID-19 period to tide over these difficult times.

A major and a positive event in the domain of the Indian civil aviation industry in the recent past has been the launch of the project to develop the Noida International Airport located in Jewar in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh. This Greenfield airport located about 72 km from Indira Gandhi International Airport, will be the second international airport in the National Capital Region. A comprehensive report on this project by Anil Chopra has been included in this issue of the magazine.

All this and more in this issue of SP’s AirBuz. Welcome aboard and we wish you many happy landings!

We at SP’s wish every valuable reader of SP’s AirBuz, a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Year 2022.