New Delhi: Fighter jet makers that lost out on the world’s biggest deal a few years ago are gearing up for another shot at hitting a jackpot that may exceed $10 billion.

Uncertainty over an agreement for 126 of Dassault Aviation SA’s Rafale warplanes means India still needs scores of fighter jets to replace its Soviet-era fleet. Sweden’s defence minister, on a visit to New Delhi this week, pitched Saab AB’s Gripen in a bid to jump ahead of its rivals.

“This is the biggest fighter jet competition out there," said Justin Bronk, a research analyst at London’s Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. He estimated that India could probably afford to buy another 100 warplanes at the moment.

When it comes to air power, India’s need for new jets is increasingly urgent: About one-third of its 650-plane fleet is more than 40 years old and set to retire in the next decade. Prime minister Narendra Modi is looking to modernize India’s armed forces to keep pace with neighbours China and Pakistan.

India is nearly back where it started in 2007, when it called for bids that included technology transfer to build up its local defense industry. Five years later, Dassault beat out Saab, Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Eurofighter for a contract worth about $11 billion to build 126 planes.

Talks stall

Talks with Dassault stalled in part because India sought quality guarantees for 108 jets that would be made locally by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. On a trip to Paris in April, Modi announced he would buy 36 twin-engine Rafales directly from the French government.

While the status of the other 90 planes remains unclear, Modi’s administration has hinted that it’s looking elsewhere. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar told local television channels in April that India wanted to buy “light-weight, single- engine" aircraft to replace MiG-21s that are slated to be phased out beginning next year.

Sitanshu Kar, a defence ministry spokesman, said earlier this week that he didn’t know how many planes India would look to buy in a new agreement. He didn’t answer several calls to his mobile phone on Thursday.

The value of any new deal will likely be “in the tens of billions of dollars," according to Jon Grevatt, Asia-Pacific defense-industry analyst for IHS Jane’s. Apart from the Rafale, Eurofighter’s Typhoon and Gripen, other possibilities include Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s F-16 or F-35 joint strike fighter, and Russia’s MiG-35s, he said.

‘Big boys’

“These are the big boys in fighter aircraft at the moment," Grevatt said. “They bid for all these major programmes and would absolutely be interested in getting a piece of the Indian pie."

Representatives for Dassault, Lockheed Martin and MiG Russian Aircraft Corp. didn’t return e-mails seeking comment on whether they are seeking a new fighter jet order from India. Boeing and Eurofighter—a consortium that includes BAE Systems Plc and Airbus Group NV—declined to comment.

Ulf Nilsson, head of the Saab Aeronautics division that makes Gripen, said earlier this week that the Swedish arms manufacturer is closely following developments in India.

“There are big needs in the country and it’s of course interesting to see what happens," Nilsson said in an interview at Saab Aeronautics’ headquarters in Linkoeping, south of Stockholm, on 8 June.

India’s air force currently has 240 MiG’s in its fleet of about 25 squadrons. It estimates that at least 45 squadrons are needed to repel a joint attack from Pakistan and China, according to a 2014 parliamentary report.

The stakes may be highest for Dassault and Eurofighter, according to Bronk.

“If a hundred Typhoons or Rafales were ordered, it would be a victory in export sales and years more for the production line," he said, adding that production of the other jet “would be forced to close before 2020." Bloomberg

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