Last Update: June 05, 2023, 02:23 AM IST
Indigo (Photo: @IndiGo6E/Twitter)
European employers are among the frontrunners to take Air India’s historic provisional purchase order of 470 jets in February.
Airbus is inching towards a possible record deal to sell 500 narrow-body A320-family jets to India’s biggest carrier IndiGo, industry sources said on Sunday.
European planners are the frontrunners to order Air India’s historic provisional purchase of 470 jets in February, sources said on the sidelines of an airline industry meeting in Istanbul.
Such a deal would be worth $50 billion at recently published Airbus list prices, according to aircraft analysts, but less than half that after the broad airline industry discounts typically offered for bulk deals.
Industry sources said Airbus and Boeing are still competing in separate talks to sell 25 A330neo or Boeing 787 wide-body jets to a single airline.
IndiGo Chief Executive Peter Albers, who is attending the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Istanbul, declined to comment on commercial matters.
Airbus and Boeing also declined to comment.
Reuters first reported in March that IndiGo, which has a 56% share of the domestic Indian market, was in talks with both Airbus and Boeing for the order, which, upon confirmation, would make it the single largest airline based on the number of units. will be the largest by
IndiGo is already one of Airbus’ largest customers and has ordered a total of 830 Airbus A320-family jets so far, of which around 500 are yet to be delivered.
Airbus and Boeing are pushing billions of dollars worth of new orders beyond 2030 as airlines brace for supply shortages ahead.
Turkish Airlines made headlines ahead of an IATA meeting with a surprise announcement that it could order 600 jets, but representatives said there were few signs of an immediate deal.
trip rebound
According to a June 1 report by Barclays, Indian carriers now have the second largest order book, accounting for over 6% of the industry backlog, behind only the United States.
But some analysts have expressed concern that airlines may order more of the jets in search of the same passengers.
Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr told reporters on Sunday that globally there was more supply than demand.
IndiGo’s move comes as the world’s third largest aviation market is witnessing a strong return to travel post-Covid, with passenger footfalls increasing despite higher fares.
IndiGo aims to double its capacity by the end of the decade and expand its network, especially in international markets.
The airline has a codeshare partnership with seven carriers including Turkish Airlines, American Airlines and KLM.
The tie-up with Turkish Airlines has seen IndiGo make a major push in Europe, a favorite holiday destination among Indians, with the budget carrier now offering flights to 33 European airports.
Moving away from its single-aisle strategy, IndiGo began international operations to Istanbul earlier this year with a Boeing 777, its first wide-body aircraft, taken from codeshare partner Turkish Airlines, which provides pilots.
Albers told Reuters in an interview in March that taking the two widebodies is a stop-gap arrangement for IndiGo, which needs capacity until it takes delivery of long-range Airbus A321XLR planes in the 2025-ish time frame.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – reuters,
