India has put in place some of the most severe economic, travel and aviation restrictions in the world to combat coronavirus. The strictness has worked, holding virus fatalities down to 1 per million, versus a global average of 33 per million in early May. But the costs have been heavy for Indian airlines and MROs, including India’s largest independent MRO, Air Works.

“The government was one of the first ones to ban international flights into and out of the country, leading to an impact on our line maintenance business, which handles about 40,000 annual transits,” explains Managing Director and CEO D. Anand Bhaskar. International flights declined 92% from early 2020 to early May, according to RadarBox. The remaining flights are mostly cargo, medevac and repatriation flights.

Bhaskar says the pipeline of scheduled maintenance activities has not been drastically impacted yet. But India’s in-country lockdown of both intercity and intra-city travel has affected Air Works’ ability to do regular maintenance or even storage and preservation activities at some stations. The Indian government has virtually eliminated domestic air travel, and daily flights are down 99%, perhaps the steepest decline in the world. 

Bhaskar says the impact on his business has been moderate, but “cash flows and liquidity have been hit hardest.” He is focusing on the situation as it evolves with countries and airlines seeking to survive and re-commence operations when that is possible.

The 70-year-old MRO has taken several steps to safeguard employees, including giving them masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment, daily disinfection of all locations, requiring employee presence only when needed, relaxing traditional attendance processes and moving all financial and internal communication to a virtual environment.

Air Works has also launched several new initiatives during the lockdown. These include a virtual system for managing human resources, a new Learning Management System for training and even an innovation portal called ideabox, so employees can contribute ideas on new ways of doing business and achieving efficiency.

Air Works leadership has accepted partial deferment of salaries, and no employees have been laid off. “We hope to emerge as a stronger and much tighter-knitted organization by the time this is over,” Bashkar says.

How long will that be? The CEO expects domestic flights will soon re-commence on a limited scale. “However, kick-starting aviation at the global level is essential, given that a good percentage of our revenue comes from customers in the Middle East and South East Asia.  We remain optimistic that the situation should begin to normalize in the coming quarter, although it remains to be seen to what level.”

Meanwhile Air Works and other Indian aviation companies are discussing their problems with the Indian government. However, “while the government has announced several measures to boost liquidity for businesses and provide relief to individuals in the country, a sector-specific package is yet to be announced.”