Interview | Vice president and country director, Thales in India, Emmanuel de Roquefeuil

Last year was unusual. How did Thales adapt to new realities dictated by the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Last year was indeed an unusual one. At Thales, we express our solidarity with the country, with all those affected by it. We have been standing strong together, along with our 1800+ employees and our partners, in every possible way to help India come out of this pandemic safe and stronger.

Even before the nation-wide lockdown began in the last week of March in 2020, Thales had started working with reduced presence of staff at any time in its offices across the country. From the start, Thales’ main objective has been to ensure safety of its employees. Health and total well-being of our employees have always been a top priority and we have tried to ensure that without compromising on our standards of services and support for our customers. Thales employees, whether working remotely or working from office (which were opened in the second week of May with all sanitary and safety measures during the unlock situation) have been fully mobilised in the battle against COVID-19, attempting to bring the same level of services and support for its customers across our markets as during the normal days.

Together, we have remained steadfast to ensure our colleagues’ safety and business continuity to support our customers in these challenging times.

From Thales’s perspective, how is Aero India 2021 different from its previous editions in terms of your exhibits and participation?

This year, Thales will provide the visitors a chance to witness the latest cutting-edge technologies across civil and defence aerospace as well as land and naval defence along with a special feature on its efforts towards ‘Make in India’.

At Aero India 2021, Thales will showcase its airborne optronic capability, the targeting and reconnaissance pod TALIOS. It combines targeting and tactical reconnaissance capabilities in a single pod that will be able to embed Artificial Intelligence in the future, and also a range of rockets for fixed and rotary wing military aircraft.

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