New Delhi: India’s largest and budget-friendly airline, IndiGo, will be marking history in the aviation industry; as the airline’s board is likely to place an order for 500 Airbus A320 Neo family aircraft on June 19.
The order which counts up to around $50 billion, is followed by Air India’s mega order of 470 aircraft placed in March. Indigo’s order, if confirmed, will mark history for being the biggest order in aviation history.
The Economic Times report mentions that a delivery of 477 aircraft belonging to IndiGo of the same A320 family is pending by 2030, which means that the airline company would be getting this uninterrupted supply by the end of this decade.
“The airline wants to ensure delivery slots so that fleet size remains steady. It will retire around 100 aircraft by 2030 and needs fresh planes to maintain the targeted fleet size of over 700 in the coming decade,” a source close to the matter told the ET.
The urgency of the deliveries
Indigo owns 60 per cent of India’s domestic aviation market. In this order for 500 aircraft, 300 of them are expected to be A321Neo and A321 XLR aircraft. As the company plans to expand its business operations in Europe, these plans hold the utmost importance as the aircraft can operate for up to eight hours.
Meanwhile, the report further states the creditworthiness of the IndiGo as India’s biggest airline company did not default on any of its lease payments during the Covid-19
Indigo’s market share
India’s airline industry is being dominated by the airline company, IndiGo, with DGCA reporting the company’s market share to be of 61.4 per cent at present times, which was 57.6 per cent in April.
After Go First announced its insolvency along with its suspension of flight operations, IndiGo has been benefitting from the former’s absence from the market.
In the past few days, both IndiGo and Air India have increased their flight frequencies in routes where Go First used to dominate, for example, Delhi to Leh, Srinagar, Pune along with Mumbai to Leh, Srinagar and Dehradun.
