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IndiGo, India’s largest airline, on Monday placed an order for 500 A320 family planes with Airbus, making it the world’s largest ever single-tranche aircraft acquisition.
The order, for narrow-bodied planes such as A320neo, A321neo, and A321XLR, will cement its growth plans in the next decade with deliveries taking place from 2030 to 2035.
The airline did not place any order for wide-bodied aircraft. “The engine selection for this order will be done in due course and so will be the exact mix of A320 and A321 aircraft,” IndiGo stated. While IndiGo had selected Pratt & Whitney for the first batch of A320Neo aircraft, it chose CFM engines in 2019 and 2021. The CFM agreement covers 580 planes that IndiGo ordered in two tranches.
The purchase agreement was signed by Rahul Bhatia, promoter and managing director of IndiGo; Venkataramani Sumantran, chairman; and Pieter Elbers, chief executive officer (CEO), on one side, and Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus, and Christian Scherer, chief commercial officer, on the other, at the Paris Air Show 2023.
“IndiGo … has previous orders totalling 480, which are to be delivered between today and the end of this decade,” the airline said. The airline has 312 aircraft in its fleet. With this, IndiGo’s order book has almost 1,000 aircraft, to be delivered well into the next decade.
The order will be for both incremental growth and replacement and is seen as a way to secure a delivery pipeline as the Airbus order book is fast filling up.
Four months ago, Air India had ordered 470 planes: 250 with Airbus and 220 with Boeing.
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With IndiGo’s announcement, Air India’s has been pushed to being the world’s second-largest, single-tranche order.
Elbers said it was difficult to overstate the significance of IndiGo’s order.
The total order enables IndiGo to fulfil its mission to continue to boost “economic growth, social cohesion and mobility” in India, he added. “This order strongly reaffirms IndiGo’s belief in the growth of India, in the A320 family and in our strategic partnership with Airbus,” Elbers said.
Elbers had earlier indicated the airline would double in size and scale by 2030. Doubling the fleet addition to 600 by 2030 would mean a net addition of more than 40 aircraft a year.
The airline operates 13,039 flights a week, which is about 13.3 per cent more than what it was a year ago, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Scherer said this “landmark” order marked a new chapter in relations between Airbus and IndiGo, democratising affordable air travel for millions of people in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market.
“It is also a resounding endorsement of the A320 Family’s best-in-class operating economics that have been powering IndiGo’s growth for almost two decades. We cherish our long-standing relationship with IndiGo and are proud of our success together,” he added.
Aviation consultant Mark D Martin said it was disappointing that there were no A350s and A330Neos in the deal.
In all likelihood, “we might not see 500 aircraft deployed into service in India. Effective deployment will remain at 300-350 with the remaining aircraft on order, being structured as part of fleet replacement cycle every seven or 10 years”, he said.
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