Just a year ago Indigo placed the largest aircraft order in the history of modern civil aviation. A behemoth order for 500 airbus planes. However that order only included planes of the narrow body A320 family, the family of jets the airline currently almost exclusively operates. However since that order Indigo has done some experimenting with wet-leasing wide bodies and some doubts about range of new planes have pushed the giant Indian LLC to place a new order with Airbus. Today I'll cover all of this.
Indigo Orders Airbus A350 Aircraft For Further Expansions
This is the first order the Indian LCC has placed in its history for wide body planes. The budget airline so far has only ever operated Airbus A320 family planes for all its main line operations. Regional flights also utilised a fleet of much smaller ATRs. The A320 family has worked wonders for Indigo and has allowed it to grow into one of the largest budget airlines in the world.
The aircraft has worked so well for Indigo that the airline has further committed to the type as recently as last year. The order was for a massive 500 planes, making it the biggest in aviation history.
However less than 12 months later a new order add to the planes Indigo expects to receive from Airbus in the coming years. This time the order is for the widely successful Airbus A350.
Specifically Indigo has placed a firm order for 30 Airbus A350-900 planes with options for 70 more aircraft. Potentially a huge order for Airbus, which ads another operator to the list for the A350.
However, although this is the first oder for a wide body planes, when the A350s enter service they won't be the first wide body operated Indigo flights.
Indigo's Wide Body Experiments
Indigo has so far only owned turboprops or A320 family jets. However some of its flights have already operated on wide body planes. The airline has and is using some wet leased jets to operate some long range high capacity flights from Istanbul. The airline wet leased a Boeing 777-300ER from Turkish Airlines and uses them on flights from Istanbul to Delhi and Mumbai in a mind-blowing 2 class configuration featuring:
- 7 Business Class Seats (1 Row)
- 524 Economy Class Seats
Indigo's order for Airbus A350 planes therefore follows this experiment in both handling ticketing and operations of 2 of the largest planes available out there.
The aircraft Indigo has leased from Turkish Airlines are:
- TC-LKE
- TC-LKD
The former originally entered service with Emirates in 2007 and then moved on to serve in Azur Air's fleet before being acquired by Turkish. The latter instead entered service with Air Austral in 2009, then moved on to Alitalia and finally joined Turkish Airlines.
Why Is Indigo Ordering the A350 Now?
There are couple of ways to look at this order:
- Indigo isn't totally satisfied with the performance data of the A321XLR. It's no secret that the airline would like to commence flights to London. By far the most lucrative long haul destination for any Indian carrier. However it isn't totally clear if the A321XLR would provide the performance needed to do so on a full load.
- The airline just wants to upscale its operations and start offering higher capacity to key destinations or reach further destinations in order to tap into new unexplored markets. The most intuitive routes would see Indigo open routes towards Australia and Europe. Areas where there are huge Indian expat communities.
- Or maybe the waiting time to get a significant amount of A321XLRs is so long that is might be quicker to order A350s in order to power up long range operations. Although this implies having all the staff training costs for the new aircraft type.
