Aviation News – IndiGo’s recent order of 30 Airbus A350-900 wide-body aircraft is geared towards transforming India into a global aviation hub and the airline’s focus on “internationalisation” envisions offering direct international flights from multiple points in India, the carrier’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said Tuesday.
Indian airlines do not command a dominant share of international traffic to and from India, especially in the medium and long-haul segments, where foreign carriers account for a bulk of the market share. For years now, large aviation hubs in West Asia and Southeast Asia have been dominant connection points for Indian travellers flying long-haul.
According to Elbers, IndiGo with its dominant position in India’s large and growing domestic aviation market is in a position to naturally evolve into a global aviation player and contribute in making India a global aviation hub with multiple options for international-to-domestic and international-to-international connections. Turning India into a major aviation hub is also part of the government’s civil aviation vision.
Read | IndiGo to expand operations on international routes, aims to double size by 2030: CEO Pieter Elbers
“If you were to make a differentiation between international markets in the, let’s say, four-hour range, and what is beyond the six-hour range, you see an almost linear decline in the market share of Indian carriers. Against that backdrop, for us it is natural evolution to bring that market share back to levels which are more common in other parts of the world, where carriers from countries where there’s a large market have a significant share (in international traffic),” Elbers said in a conference call.
On April 25, IndiGo had announced a firm order for 30 Airbus A350-900 aircraft, along with purchase options for another 70 planes of the A350 family. These aircraft, which can operate long-haul international flights, will start joining the carrier’s fleet starting 2027. Elbers declined to comment on the potential routes on which the A350s will be deployed, and whether IndiGo plans to offer a dual-class configuration on its wide-body product with more passenger amenities. He said that all options are open and the decisions will be taken in due course based on the evolving requirements of the Indian flyers and the country’s aviation landscape. The airline currently offers an all-economy cabin on almost all its flights.
Festive offer
IndiGo’s current fleet of nearly 350 planes mostly comprises narrow-body Airbus A320 family planes. In terms of wide-body aircraft, it has just two Boeing 777 planes on damp lease that are used exclusively to operate flights to and from Istanbul. The A350 aircraft order is IndiGo’s first wide-body plane order.
Read | Pieter Elbers: ‘IndiGo’s product evolution will be driven by India’s changing aviation landscape, passenger profile’
Prior to the A350s, as part of its strategy of internationalisation, IndiGo will start inducting the narrow-body A321XLR aircraft starting 2025. Although the XLRs—short for extra-long range—are single-aisle planes, their extended range enables them to operate on medium-haul international routes that IndiGo is currently not able to service with its current fleet.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Clearly XLRs will help us to solidify our network in some markets…My favourite example is Nairobi. We operate today out of Mumbai…with the XLR, we could start combining it also with Bangalore or Delhi, or other places in India,” Elbers said.
“You have seen that the international network of IndiGo has been a consistent expansion…in range. The first flights back in 2011, 2012, were…very classical flights from India to the Middle East. We’ve gradually expanded that to Southeast Asia. And you’re aware of our network expansion, which we did in the middle of last year to Central Asia…the XLR will take that further. And these wide body planes (A350s) will only further help us to reach different parts of the world,” he added.
The IndiGo CEO said that a key characteristic of international aviation hubs is a strong domestic market and the opportunity to connect passengers, adding that a large number of domestic flyers also travel overseas, but Indian airlines are not able to serve that consumer base due to low long-haul capacity. India currently has just 70-odd wide-body aircraft, all of which are with Tata group airlines Air India and Vistara.
“We (IndiGo) first had experience with domestic connectivity. More recently, we started domestic-to-international connectivity. And even more recently, we started international-to-international connectivity,” Elbers said. He gave the example of American and European carriers using multiple airports as connection hubs, and said that the same is doable by IndiGo in India by going beyond top airports like Delhi and Mumbai.
ADVERTISEMENT
On being asked about the rationale behind placing a firm order for 30 wide-body planes and keeping a larger number—70—as optional orders, Elbers said that the idea was to make a beginning that is impactful and bold, and creating the opportunity to build on it in the future once the wide-body fleet operation is successful and stable.
“I think IndiGo has had a tradition over the years to be bold and mindful at the very same time. This firm order (of 30 A350 planes)…is really giving us the size and the scale which is needed to start an operation. And clearly the 70 purchase rights with all the optionality we will have is putting us actually in a very good position. We are entering into a space which admittedly is new for us. We’re very confident, but it’s new for us,” Elbers said.
Around 27 per cent of IndiGo’s capacity is currently deployed on international routes, which it aims to expand to 30 per cent in the near term. The A321XLR and A350 aircraft, the airline expects the share to grow further. IndiGo aims to nearly double its fleet size by 2030 from around 350 aircraft at present to 600 planes. The airline has an outstanding order book of nearly 1,000 planes with deliveries planned well into the next decade.
