New Delhi: Turkey seems to have finally come to realise that strained relations with India will not do its already ‘fragile’ economy any good. The media in that country has raised alarms that the Tatas could sever ties with the Koç Group of Turkey, one of its largest industrial conglomerates.
This came after Air India, owned by the Tata Group, decided to call off its contract with Turkish maintenance firm Turkish Technic. This came after Turkey’s continuing support to back Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
In 2017, the Tata Group’s Voltas Limited and Koç Group’s Beko had entered into a Joint Venture for consumer durables. Koç is a leading player in Europe and the tie-up with Tata happened after the Turkish firm eyed the huge market in India.
In 2020, Voltas and Beko launched their first ‘Make in India’ factory with an investment of nearly Rs 1,286 crore in Sanand, Gujarat. In the next few years, the partnership helped Voltas diversify from air conditioners to other durable goods under the Voltas Beko banner.
The current crisis has cast a shadow over the partnership. According to leading Turkish media Haber Huriyetti, Tata Group may not dissolve the partnership as it would “harm their interests”.
Koç Holding is the leading investment holding company in Turkey and its largest industrial and services group in terms of revenues, exports, taxes, number of employees and market capitalisation on the Borsa İstanbul with over 95,000 people.
Air India has now announced that it is looking to send its wide-body planes, whose heavy maintenance is done by Turkish Technic, to other MRO entities. Campbell Wilson, the company’s CEO has said that while this could take some time, Air India is “obviously sensitive to the national sentiment” and would take cognisance of what people expected it to do.
“With this most recent development, we will look to recalibrate where we send our aircraft, reduce the amount that we are sending to Turkiye and send it to other places. But that does take some time because aircraft have to be maintained… we are cognisant of recent developments and we will look to adjust our plans,” he added.
Recently, IndiGo announced that it would terminate its leasing agreement with Turkish Airlines by August 31. Earlier, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation had given it a three-month extension to avoid disruption in passenger services.
