Date: Issue 45 - August 2013
Defence Turkey: First of all thank you very much for the interview. How is the show going on, what are you displaying in the show? Can you please inform us about these details?
First of all show is going very well. It is interesting that I have been coming to IDEF now for I think since 2001 or 2002 time frame when It was in Ankara. To see it is growing every year more has been quite remarkable. In fact, I was worried that if IDEF came to Istanbul that we had a hard time to in able to meet Air Forces, with military as well as SSM because everybody was in Ankara. In Istanbul this has become much more than just a country show: a major Defence show. It has become much more regional many more countries and it is grown every year. Our ability interface with not only the Turkish government but also other governments as well as expanded. I have been extremely pleased to see what’s happened and I think whoever the decision to bring to İstanbul has made a good decision. At the beginning we were in IDEF with a small little booth. We were very close to Alp Aviation at that time so they showed us what to do and how to do things. We slowly moved up a little bit more and over the last several years we worked with Sikorsky very closely. As you know Sikorsky is a sister company of Pratt & Whitney .Both of us are working under United Technologies Corporation. So Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney have now joint forces and we share space on the stand. We are a little bit larger on foot print then before and a little bit closer in approximately to some of our customers better in this display as well. In addition to that we have continue to grow our relationship with Alp Aviation as well as Kale Kalıp. So as you go to both to Kale Kalıp and Alp Aviation, you will see the evidence of the relationship with Pratt & Whitney. There is some relationship that has grown with TAI two years ago in IDEF. We signed a MoU with TAI, you may remember that. So when you go to the different stands, you can now start to see a little more Pratt & Whitney presents. This year we have been a little bit further because of the joint venture that we established with Kale Kalıp. We have Kale and Pratt & Whitney stand this year which is three times bigger than the first original Pratt & Whitney stand that we had an Ankara so many years ago. So it clearly has become very important part of our business and it is very critical piece of our way to reach out to the customer to have meetings and conversations, not only with Turkey but with other countries.