India’s Moneycontrol announced that Indian low-cost air carrier IndiGo secured an order for 30 Airbus A350-900 aircraft today. The same text also stated that the company expects the first units to be delivered from 2027. Other corresponding texts were also published by Reuters and Yahoo! Singapore. In their text published today, Reuters asserted the deal is worth over $9 billion. Previously, Bloomberg published a text on March 21 stating IndiGo’s interest in ordering A359s.
IndiGo subsequently published their own press release on the order which can be seen here.
Previously, IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers suggested the airline was assessing the possibility of direct flights to Europe and the United States. In September 2023, ch-aviation reported that IndiGo was interested in introducing flights to Amsterdam with the narrowbody, longer-range A321XLR. In another instance, Elbers re-iterated their interest in using A321XLRs for Europe flights in a discussion with Zee Business published in November 2023.
The A359s have the range and capacities necessary to operate many routes connecting metropolitan areas between Asia, Europe, and the US. In another instance when IndiGo operated widebodies–in this case a pair of leased Boeing 777-300ERs from Turkish Airlines–they were operated no further than the high-density flights to Istanbul, according to AirlineGeeks. Otherwise, this order is IndiGo’s first purchase of widebody aircraft.