Jupiter Aviation in pact with UK's Marshall Aerospace for aviation hub at Hassan

Bangalore: The Hassan aviation cluster, which is being built by Jupiter Aviation at a projected outlay of Rs3,000-crore is looking at cloning a facility of Cambridge, UK-based operator Marshall Aerospace  and has signed a memorandum of understanding to this effect.

Marshall Aerospace converts, modifies and maintains military, corporate and civilian aircraft, while providing design, manufacturing, testing, certification and logistic support.
It has an 800-acre site, and also operates the local Cambridge airport.

S Ravi Narayanan, managing director and CEO of Jupiter Aviation termed the MoU as a major step in fulfilling Jupiter Aviation's objective to make Hassan a world-class aviation life cycle support centre. He said it would help the company replicate the infrastructure and customer base of Marshall.

The Hassan airport complex is being built over 2,500 acres, with a projected cost of Rs3,000 crore, of which around Rs600 crore will be invested in the first phase. It is scheduled to be completed by early 2009.

Sources say that the complex will have an airport with a 5,000 metre runway, a pilot training institute, an aircraft maintenance centre, a hi-tech hospital, a golf club and swimming pool. The airport would have a capacity to handle around two million passengers in its first year, which is expected to increase to 10 million over the next 30 years. On an annual basis, the facility would also handle 60,000 tonnes of cargo and carry out heavy checks and modifications of roughly 60 aircraft.

The airport will have two MRO hangars that will be able to accommodate two Airbus A380s, or eight Airbus A320s.