Aerospace sector faces challenges daily: Arvind Melligiri of Aequs Ltd

The aerospace manufacturing segment has to face challenges on a daily basis. However, some challenges are big, such as the geopolitical challenge in the form of the Russia-Ukraine war, which put constraints on the supply of Titanium from Russia, as the US had said that they will not buy it from Russia. As the aerospace industry is global and everyone wants to see the aircrafts fly, there had to be a mechanism to overcome such constraints and restrictions. There was enough backup by the global companies, especially in Europe, who were able to manage with the amount of Titanium they had with them. In fact, there was no such restriction on Europeans to buy Titanium from Russia, and they were able to maintain enough supplies. These observations were made by Aravind Melligeri, the Chairman and CEO of the Belgaum, Karnataka-based Aequs Limited. He was speaking on the sidelines of the Initial Public Offering, which opens on December 3, 2025. The price band has been fixed at Rs 118 to Rs 124 per equity share. Melligeri recalled that when COVID struck, the aviation segment took a back seat. Before that, the situation was a bit different. “The aerospace industry continued to grow, especially from 2003 to 2020. Though there is a down cycle every ten years or so, that never happened. But COVID put a stop to this growth in 2020. So when the market came back in 2021, there were not enough people available to do the work. That created a vacuum in a sense. But we continued to invest in capacity building, and that helped us to attract more work from global customers,” said Melligeri. He said that the safety of an aircraft in this industry has increased tremendously over the last 50 years. This is because the rules and regulations, processes and constraints are very stringent. “Qualification of aircraft parts is one of the biggest constraints. Sometimes it takes 6 months, sometimes 2 years or at times 5 years to qualify a part,” explained Melligeri. Adding further on the challenging aspects, Melligeri said that everything in the aviation segment needs planning, and at times, one is forced to order material 36 months in advance. “At times, I need to know what I need 36 months later and need to place an order today. One cannot just walk in and start doing things. One needs to build capacity over a period of time. When we set up our manufacturing at Belgaum, we had experts living there, we trained people on how to do things, day in and day out, and eventually built capacities,” added Melligeri. He also informed that 89 per cent of their business comes from the aerospace segment, and they have been growing steadily, keeping the industry requirements in mind. “We make 7,500 aircraft wheels per year. That's about 10 per cent of the global wheel capacity. We make for different aircraft models built by Boeing and Airbus,” said Melligeri. He also informed that they have continued to grow in the last four years with a 20 per cent CAGR in the aerospace segment. He also said that the global demand scenario is steadily growing as their customers have a huge order book. The major customers of the company include Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Collins Aerospace, Spirit Aerosystems Inc., Safran, GKN Aerospace, Mubea Aerostructures, Honeywell, Eaton and Sabca in the Aerospace Segment, and Hasbro, Spinmaster, Wonderchef, and Tramontina in the consumer Segment.