500 planes for Indigo
Airbus posts record order
06/19/2023, 7:25 p.m
The Indian low-cost airline Indigo apparently wants to expand its fleet and submits a record order to Airbus. It is arguably the biggest deal in civil aviation. However, it will still be a few years before the aircraft are actually in operation.
The world’s largest aircraft manufacturer Airbus landed a record order on the first day of the Paris Air Show. The Indian low-cost airline Indigo has ordered 500 aircraft from the A320neo model family. Representatives of both sides signed the deal at the world’s largest air show in Le Bourget. This is the largest single order in the history of aviation, said Airbus sales manager Christian Scherer. According to Indigo boss Pieter Elbers, the Indian airline currently operates a fleet of around 300 machines. In all, Indigo plans to take delivery of nearly 1,000 Airbus aircraft, 480 of them by the end of the decade.
The record order is a firm order and not a purchase option, said Elbers, who managed the Dutch airline KLM until 2022. The order includes the standard version A320neo, the long version A321neo and the new long-haul variant A321XLR.
According to the manager, it is still being decided how the deal will be divided between the individual types. He still has time for that, because delivery of the 500 jets is not scheduled to begin until 2030. Neither side wanted to comment on the purchase price. This time they didn’t even refer to list prices, which are usually discounted heavily. According to the list price, the order would have a volume of 55 billion dollars (50.3 billion euros). However, Airbus has not updated its list prices for a few years.
Order “just the beginning”
Indigo was founded in 2005 and has since ordered hundreds of Airbus machines – most recently 300 in 2019. However, Airbus sales chief Scherer said Monday’s order was “just the beginning”. It shows the potential of the Indian market for aviation.
India overtook China as the world’s most populous nation with more than 1.4 billion people in April. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said that Indigo’s aircraft order would give millions of people in India the opportunity to fly. According to Elbers, Indigo plans to double its own fleet by 2030. He did not want to comment on the fleet plans for the coming decade. However, the current order gives the airline the necessary flexibility in planning.