India has become one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing aviation markets. Yet it imports each and every one of the commercial passenger aircraft it needs. Indian airlines have placed orders for nearly 2,000 aircraft—a figure that surpasses the outstanding orders of any other nation—all destined to be built by American giant Boeing or its European rival Airbus. We are a nation that sends spacecraft to Mars, operates nuclear submarines and exports complex software, yet when it comes to the commercial passenger jet—the very symbol of industrial sovereignty—we remain entirely dependent on others.
To understand the scale of this challenge, one must look at the historical trajectories of the nations that built the global aviation order. The first scheduled commercial passenger flight took place in 1914, flying from St Petersburg to Tampa in Florida. Five years later, the first daily scheduled commercial passenger flight was launched between London and Paris. However, it was the modern jet engine, designed and first patented by Frank Whittle in 1930, that revolutionised aviation.
The post-war era saw the advent of commercial jets. British Overseas Aircraft Corporation flew the first-ever commercial jet-powered airliner in 1949 and introduced the first commercial jet service in 1952.
By the mid-1950s, US companies began designing and building their own jet airliners. The breakthrough came with General Electric’s development of the first American jet engine, I-A, which was born from a covert project to counter the German Me 262.
This provided the foundational technology and the guaranteed market for early jet engines like J31 and J33, which in turn powered the first generation of American jet fighters. This military-industrial convergence allowed companies like Boeing and Douglas to take immense risks.
The Boeing 707, aircraft that truly inaugurated the jet age for the masses, was a direct descendant of the KC-135 Stratotanker, a military aerial refuelling aircraft. This model created an industry that has consistently pushed the boundaries of technology and efficiency, from the first swept-wing jets to the composite-intensive 787 Dreamliner.
The Soviets took a different, yet equally State-centric, path. The design bureaus (Tupolev, Ilyushin, Yakovlev, and Mikoyan-Gurevich) were tasked with achieving strategic parity and, where possible, superiority over the West. Tupolev Tu-104, derived from the Tu-16 bomber, became one of the first successful jet airliners, and the Ilyushin Il-62 provided long-range service.
In the postwar era, Britain, France and Germany too had capable aircraft industries, but lacked the scale to challenge the American behemoths. Then came the creation of Airbus in 1970, a consortium of French and German companies later joined by Spain and the UK. It was a project designed to ensure that Europe would not be solely dependent on the US for its civil aviation needs. European governments provided repayable loans for the A300, the first twin-engine wide-body jet.
China is a new entrant to this club. For decades, China’s aviation industry was limited to producing derivatives of Soviet designs. The turning point was the launch of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) in 2008. The C919, a narrow-body airliner designed to compete directly with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, represents the culmination of this effort. Albeit, yet to obtain certifications from American and European aviation regulators, C919 passenger jet made its debut to first scheduled international daily commercial flight in August 2026.
Crucially, China has also focused on the most difficult component: the engine. Currently only four countries—the US, UK, France and Russia—are capable of making aircraft engines from scratch on their own. However, the development of WS-10 turbofan for military aircraft, and CJ-1000A for the C919, showcases China’s long-term, strategic commitment to mastering engine technology.
Against this, India’s efforts, while aspirational, appear insufficiently ambitious. Though we have produced Hindustan Aeronautics’ Tejas, National Aerospace’s Saras, a light transport aircraft, and the HAL Hansa, a trainer, the engine remains the Achilles’ heel. Tejas, for all its indigenous design, flies on a General Electric F404 engine. Saras relies on Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A turboprops, and the Hansa on European Rotax engines. An aircraft without an indigenous engine is like a body without a heart.
The Kaveri engine project, initiated in 1986 by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment, was meant to power the Tejas and break our dependence on foreign propulsion. After decades of technical shortfalls, the project was effectively delinked from the fighter and relegated to a technology demonstrator. However, recently it has successfully undergone trials in Russia, proving its airworthiness and thrust capabilities. The Defence Research and Development Organisation is reportedly reviving the project, not just for Tejas, but for India's future stealth drones and unmanned combat aerial vehicles.
The Kaveri is not just about powering a fighter jet; it is about mastering the holy trinity of modern aerospace: high-temperature materials, advanced computational fluid dynamics for compressor and turbine design and sophisticated full-authority digital engine control systems. Success with the Kaveri, even in a derivative form, would create the foundational expertise needed to contemplate a commercial turbofan. It would be the single-greatest leap towards true aerospace independence.
The government has signalled optimism for the country’s first made-in-India civilian planes within two years through a joint venture. Yet developing a new commercial airliner and its engine is a project of staggering cost and duration with no guarantee of commercial success. The private sector is inherently risk-averse when faced with the combined market dominance of Boeing and Airbus, who have amortised their costs over decades and perfected their supply chains.
This is precisely where the government must step up and provide the long-term, patient capital that the private sector cannot, to act as the anchor customer for the first batch of aircraft, and to fund the fundamental research in engine technology and advanced materials. A sovereign wealth fund for aerospace must be created and a collaborative ecosystem between DRDO, HAL, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research laboratories, pioneering tech institutions and private industry must be fostered.
Certification, too, will be a bottleneck, but a necessary hurdle. The civil aviation regulator lacks the expertise to certify a large commercial jet to global standards. Coordination with its US and European counterparts for certification would be required.
By building a commercial aircraft, we force our regulators to upgrade, our supply chain to mature and our engineers to innovate. The question is not whether we can afford to build our own aircraft, but whether we can afford not to. Two thousand aircrafts on order books will need replacement in 20 years. If we do not start now, we could be placing orders for 4,000 foreign jets by 2046.
Manish Tewari | MP, lawyer, former Union I&B minister and author of A World Adrift
(Views are personal)
(manishtewari01@gmail.com)