Aviation giant Airbus made a splash at the ongoing Paris Air Show by securing a $50 billion deal with Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo, landing the biggest aircraft deal in commercial aviation history.
IndiGo placed an order for 500 A320 planes that Airbus is scheduled to deliver between 2030 and 2035.
The current purchase is expected to boost the budget carrier’s fleet of over 300 planes and will complement the additional 480 planes it recently ordered that will be delivered by the end of this decade.
Indian carriers on full throttle
This massive order for the A320neo-family jets marks the culmination of months of negotiations and brings the total number of Airbus planes the French aerospace company has sold to IndiGo to 1,330.
It is part of the low-cost airline’s bigger plan to expand its network and capacity, as well as enhance its position not just in the local, but international commercial aviation sector as well.
Already, IndiGo has the largest fleet among all Indian airlines and has a domestic market share (by passengers ferried) of over 60 percent.
It appears that Indian carriers are on a determined path to keep pace with the world’s leading airlines, such as Emirates Airlines and Qatar Airways.
Earlier this year, Air India announced a provisional purchase of 470 Airbus and Boeing jets, with a combined total value of $70 billion.
Read: Airbus forecasts ME aviation services industry to outpace global growth
Outlook bright for commercial aviation
With international passenger traffic and domestic air travel now back to almost pre-pandemic levels, Boeing predicted a brighter outlook for the commercial aviation industry in the next 20 years.
The US-based aerospace behemoth projected global demand for 42,595 new commercial jets by 2042, valued at $8 trillion, painting a bright outlook for the global commercial aviation industry.
The data was released as part of the launch of Boeing’s 2023 Commercial Market Outlook (CMO), the company’s forecast of 20-year demand for commercial airplanes and services.
According to the latest CMO, the first to be published since the pandemic that grounded air travel globally, passenger traffic will continue to outpace global economic growth of 2.6%. with the global fleet expected to nearly double to 48,600 jets, expanding 3.5% per year.
Airlines will replace about half of the global fleet with new, more fuel-efficient models, according to the forecasts.
As for regional demand, the report said that Asia-Pacific markets will represent more than 40% of global demand with half of that total coming from China.
Meanwhile, South Asia’s fleet will expand more than 7% annually, the world’s fastest rate, with India accounting for more than 90% of the region’s passenger traffic.
North America and Europe each will account for about 20% of global demand. Low-cost carriers will operate more than 40% of the single-aisle fleet in 2042, up from 10% 20 years ago, according to the report.
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