French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has revealed that IndiGo Airlines (6E, Delhi International) could announce an order for "several hundred" Airbus aircraft at the Paris Air Show to be held at Paris Le Bourget Airport in June. Le Maire made the comments, which were first reported in Les Echoes, while attending a G20 meeting of finance ministers in New Delhi.
IndiGo is the largest airline in India by a comfortable margin. According to ch-aviation capacities data, its 300 plus aircraft currently provide over 35% of all the available seat kilometres on flights in and out of India's airports. Measured by flight frequencies, IndiGo provides almost 48% of all flights across India's international and domestic markets.
In terms of market dominance, IndiGo is comfortably ahead of the second-placegetter, Air India (AI, Delhi International). That airline is readying to merge with Vistara (Delhi International), which will give it a boost on both metrics but still see it trailing IndiGo. But Air India's new owners, Tata Sons, are pouring resources into the airline, including approving a record breaking aircraft order for 470 planes in February. Air India CEO Campbell Wilson says that order is all about being ready to harness the expected future opportunities in Indian aviation.
That order and a resurgent Air India may emerge as push factors in any IndiGo order. The latest Airbus India Market Forecast (published approximately 12 months ago) estimates India will need 2,210 new aircraft by 2040. Except for one wet-leased B777-300ER and thirty-nine ATR72-600s, IndiGo operates an all Airbus narrowbody fleet comprising twenty-two A320-200s, 121 A320-200Ns, two A321-200(P2F)s, and seventy-nine A321-200NX. The latest Airbus order data also shows that IndiGo still has 180 undelivered A320neo and 308 undelivered A321neo outstanding, meaning any further order from IndiGo for several hundred aircraft would signal a massive commitment to fending off the Tata Sons airlines and maintaining their market dominance.
