Indian aircraft manufacturer HAL imposes penalties on the American GE Aerospace. The reason for this is very understandable, as the American company has delivered only 6 out of 99 ordered engines for Tejas fighters in 5 years.
According to The Economic Times, this is an overdue contract for F404 engines worth 716 million dollars, which was signed back in 2021. Deliveries were supposed to start in 2024, but due to problems with the supply chain, everything was delayed.
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GE Aerospace promised to fix everything and deliver 20 engines by the end of the year, but it seems that the Indians are not going to wait. The Indian side does not officially disclose the amount of penalties, but they are limited to 10% of the contract value, which are imposed in the event of a delay in deliveries.
At the same time, negotiations are underway with the American company on the transfer of technology for the localization of engine production in India. This applies to both the aforementioned F404 as well as its successor, the F414.
From Defense Express we note that the imposition of penalties makes sense in this situation, especially considering that the delay actually stopped the production of Tejas fighters. A similar problem could have influenced the fact that HAL was thrown out of the development of the 5th-gen AMCA aircraft.
The delivery of 83 Tejas under the 2021 contract is currently delayed, which seriously affects the combat capability of the Indian Air Force. The latter were forced to retire the old MiG-21s last year.
Despite the existing problems, another 97 Tejas Mk1 fighters were ordered in the summer of 2025 after a two-year wait. At the same time, the updated modification of the fighter itself took to the sky a few months later – at the end of October last year.
F404-GE-IN20 engines were also contracted with the expected start of deliveries in 2027 and completion in 2032. However, given the existing problems, such terms look too optimistic.
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