On Monday, the first day of the Paris Airshow, Europe’s Airbus made the biggest plane deal in history by placing an order for 500 narrowbody jets from IndiGo, a budget airline in India.
The multibillion-dollar deal is the biggest at any point by number of airplane, obscuring Air India’s provisional purchase of 470 planes recently as India’s two biggest transporters plan for a sharp extension in regional travel demand.
Reuters first reported that months of negotiations had led to the deal.
“This is just the beginning, there’s more going forward. With the growth of India (and) the growth of the Indian aviation market … this is the right time for us to place this order,” IndiGo Chief Executive Pieter Elbers stated at a news conference.
Between 2030 and 2035, delivery of the aircraft will occur.
Despite the fact that manufacturers are having trouble meeting output goals, Indian airlines’ efforts to keep up with the world’s fastest-growing aviation market, which serves the largest population, have set industry records.
According to a Barclays report released on June 1, Indian carriers now have the second-largest order book, trailing only the United States by more than 6% of the industry backlog.
However, some analysts have expressed concern that airlines might order too many jets to accommodate the same number of passengers.
Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus, stated that it was premature to begin considering production rates of narrowbody jets higher than the planned 75 per month after signing the IndiGo agreement.
It was widely anticipated that IndiGo, which controls nearly 60% of the domestic market in India, would continue to procure single-aisle aircraft from Airbus in order to benefit from additional economies of scale.
According to sources, it is still in separate talks with Airbus and its rival Boeing for 25 widebody aircraft, which could be Boeing 787 jets or Airbus A330neos.