Boeing’s Ashmita Sethi to be Pratt & Whitney India MD

NEW DELHI: Aerospace industry communication veteran

Ashmita Sethi

is the new managing director for Pratt & Whitney (PW) India. A division of United Technologies Corp, PW has been constantly in news in India over the unending snags of its engines for the Airbus A320 and A321 Neos, leading to regulatory action by the DGCA to ensure safety.


With her over two decades’ experience in the defence and aerospace industry, PW said in a statement Sethi “will provide strategic direction for the company’s growth and business goals in India, and drive all of PW operations in India, including customer relations and support, the company’s customer training centre in Hyderabad, communications and government affairs.”

Sethi was

Boeing

India’s director communications and corporate affairs for the last nine years. Before that, she headed communications at Rolls-Royce in South Asia for over 11 years. Sethi succeeds Palash Roy Chowdhury, who had resigned this July after heading PW India for over eight years.

In India, PW has been conspicuous by its silence even as engine snags on IndiGo Neos have again surged in recent months after a brief lull. Sethi’s first challenge will be correct this and improve PW perception for passengers — which will have to be backed by improved technical reliability of the Neo engines by engineering — especially as IndiGo flies one in every two domestic travellers and is now growing internationally also very aggressively.

PW chief commercial officer Rick Deurloo said: “India was an early adopter of the Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine, seeing its potential to support growth in the commercial airline sector. Having Ashmita join our team as the country-head of India will bolster our support for our customers in the India market. Ashmita brings leadership, industry knowledge and experience to this role, and we welcome her to the Pratt & Whitney team.”

Sethi said: “I am very excited about the future of PW in India, and this is a thrilling time to join this team. The GTF engine is the most innovative and competitive product in commercial aviation today, as Pratt & Whitney continues to innovate across all of its products and services to better serve its global customers.”

PW engines for the A320 Neos have been facing technical issues right from 2016 and currently IndiGo — the world’s largest customer of A320 Neo family of aircraft — faces regulatory deadline to have only upgraded PW engines on all its Neos by January 31, 2019, to keep them flying beyond that.

In India, GoAir and IndiGo use PW-powered A320 Neos. This summer, IndiGo had placed an order worth $20 billion for CFM’s LEAP-1A engines for 280 A320 and A321 Neo planes. GoAir, however, has stuck to its choice of PW. To be sure, India’s DGCA says that GoAir has faced much less problems with the Pratt engines on its Neos than IndiGo.

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