NEW DELHI: Indigo, India’s largest airline by fleet size, placed a mammoth order for 500 Airbus A320 family aircraft at the Paris Air Show on Monday. This is the largest single order placed by any airline with Airbus and surpasses the Tatas-owned Air India’s order for 470 aircraft placed in March this year.
The deal value for the 500 planes is pegged at $50 billion but IndiGo will get a hefty discount from Airbus thanks to the huge order size and its long relationship with the European aerospace company. IndiGo will receive deliveries of these planes between 2030 and 2035. The engine selection for this order will be done in due course and so will the exact mix of A320 and A321 aircraft. For engines, IndiGo will have the option to strike a deal with CFM or Pratt & Whitney.
At present, IndiGo operates about 310 aircraft. It has already placed orders for a total of 480 planes, which will be delivered by the end of 2030. With the additional order of 500 aircraft, IndiGo’s order book has nearly 1,000 aircraft to be delivered over the next decade. The order book comprises a mix of A320NEO, A321NEO and A321XLR aircraft.
The airline recently wet-leased (leasing aircraft along with crew and engineers) two-wide body Boeing planes to operate on the India-Turkey route. IndiGo has aggressive plans for the international market and is said to be in talks with Airbus as well as its rival company Boeing for 25 wide-body planes.
The latest order by IndiGo comes at a time when its market share touched an all-time high of 61.4% in May after Go First suspended operations on May 3 and declared bankruptcy. This year, IndiGo expects to onboard 10 crore customers which it believes is equivalent to giving wings to the nation.