IndiGo is eyeing a twin-aisle aircraft order, with Airbus and Boeing both offering their wide-body jets, the A330neo and the 787, respectively, to the low-cost carrier.
Reports by Live Mint said that IndiGo has identified the Airbus A330neo and the Boeing 787 aircraft for its future operations, citing two people familiar with the matter.
“Boeing is pursuing this deal very aggressively and is very keen to fetch this order as it does not have its product in the fleet of India’s largest airline IndiGo so far,” one of the sources noted, as reported by the Indian business daily.
IndiGo is currently wet leasing three Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from Turkish Airlines, one of which is configured in a very dense configuration, with 524 out of 531 passengers sat in economy class seats, ch-aviation.com data showed.
Reuters previously reported that IndiGo was looking to order as many as 500 aircraft from Airbus, with the low-cost carrier primarily looking at the A320neo family aircraft. But no further details were shared by the airline’s chief executive officer (CEO), Pieter Elbers, at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Istanbul, Turkey, with Elbers stating that the airline would not comment on “any speculations or any drivel”.
“We have a steady flow of planes coming in,” Elbers added.
Alongside the three 777-300ERs, IndiGo operates 272 Airbus A320 family aircraft, ranging from the A320 to the A321neo. It also has 39 ATR72-600 turboprops. Its current order book, per ch-aviation.com data, totals 491 aircraft, with 175 Airbus A320eo, 166 Airbus A321neo, and 69 Airbus A321XLRs on order.
But IndiGo has not operated any wide-body aircraft itself, which would mean that if the airline were to choose either the A330neo or the 787, it would enter competition with other Indian airlines, namely Air India, and Vistara, the latter of which is to be merge with the Air India group.
The highly lucrative and rapidly growing Indian airline market has also been a hot spot for a number of other airlines, including the Middle East’s Big Three: Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways.
