India's state owned airline company, Air India, has joined hands with GE Aviation to start an aircraft engine maintenance unit in Mumbai. The deal signed between the two companies is worth a whopping amount of $90 million. Out of this $90 million, GE Aviation will contribute $20 million for the new set up, while the rest will be contributed by Air India. GE Aviation is an arm of General Electric Co.

The new facility will be set up at the Air India MRO unit located in Mumbai. As per the agreement between the two companies, Air India will be responsible for the maintenance, repair and overhauling (MRO) bit while GE Aviation will give the technical support for GEnx-1B engines. The new unit will not restrict its services only to Air India but will offer third party services to other Airline companies, spread around the world.

Air India sights this deal to be a major step in the company's dream to become a global MRO service provider.

Mr. Arvind Jadhav, CMD, Air India stated that if this engineering work can be extended to other cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Hyderabad, the company can rake in an additional revenue of Rs. 3000-4000 crore annually.