Indian airlines continued to dominate the Paris Air Show for a third straight day on Wednesday, as the low-cost carrier Akasa Air placed a small follow-on order for four aircraft to its original order book of 72 Boeing 737 Max single-aisle jets. With this, the airline has now ordered a total of 76 aircraft, which includes 23 737-8s and 53 737-8-200.
“We are excited to add four more Boeing 737-8 to support our international expansion, taking our initial order of 72 aircraft to 76 to be delivered in the next four years,” said Vinay Dube, CEO of Akasa Air.
Dube said the airline was doing better than expected. “We are a bunch of planners at Akasa and we plan not five years out but 10 years out whether it’s with cash, or profit and loss, or employees,” he said.
The Akasa Air CEO noted that the airline was on track to finalise another significant three-digit aircraft order and it would be ready to announce it before the end of the calendar year.
This comes days after IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, announced a 500-aircraft deal with Airbus, a record in aviation history. The latest agreement has topped the 470-aircraft deal signed by Air India in February this year and sparks a race to capitalise on the country’s growing base of fliers and vast expat population.
The order for 500 A320 family aircraft sets the “record for the biggest single purchase agreement in the history of commercial aviation”, Airbus said in a statement.
The agreement takes the total number of Airbus aircraft on order by IndiGo to 1,330, establishing its position as the world’s biggest A320 Family customer, the statement from Airbus read.
IndiGo said that this would provide the airline with a further steady stream of deliveries between 2030 and 2035. “This 500 aircraft order is not only IndiGo’s largest order but also the largest-ever single aircraft purchase by any airline with Airbus,” the airline said.
The historic deal was signed on Monday (June 19) at the Paris Air Show in the presence of Chairman of the Board of IndiGo V Sumantran, CEO of IndiGo Pieter Elbers, CEO of Airbus Guillaume Faury, and, Airbus’ Chief Commercial Officer and Head of International Christian Scherer.
In February, after its acquisition by the Tata Group, Air India had signed a 470-aircraft deal with Boeing at a price of $70 billion. At the time, Air India CEO & MD Campbell Wilson had said it was a move meant to “transform the fleet and power significant network and capacity expansion”.
SOURCE – cnbctv18.com / click to read the full news at the source
