With the summer season a little more than a month away, India’s largest carrier, IndiGo, plans to make up for the capacity shortfall resulting from its grounded Airbus A320 family of jets. While the airline has recently resorted to adding planes on short-term leases, reports suggest that it is not done yet and that 20 additional aircraft could arrive by April.
Low-cost carrier IndiGo reportedly plans to lease 20 more aircraft to offset the capacity crunch due to its grounded planes. According to Moneycontrol, the airline is negotiating deals to acquire the planes as soon as April, when the summer season kicks in. The report quotes a source as saying,
“IndiGo is in talks with multiple leasing companies and airlines to add to its fleet before the summer schedule begins in April. The airline is in the final stage of negotiations to onboard eight aircraft on wet lease from airlines and another 12 from the secondary market.”
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Indeed, the airline is no stranger to damp-leasing planes and has done so in the recent past to meet capacity. While IndiGo primarily operates an Airbus A320 family of jets, it is not opposed to looking to other manufacturers in a wet lease arrangement in which the aircraft is provided with its own flying crew.
The carrier has done this with Turkish Airlines, acquiring two of its high-capacity Boeing 777-300ER planes, which it operates exclusively to Istanbul. And now there are reports that it could look at other airlines for similar deals.
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Not too long ago, Simple Flying reported that IndiGo could acquire a few Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from Qatar Airways on wet lease, and now, Moneycontrol reports that it could also get three 737 MAXs from Ryanair as well.
Regarding the secondary market, IndiGo could acquire about a dozen A320s on wet lease for about six months. A senior executive from a major leasing company said, “The secondary market for Airbus planes with CFM engines is shrinking and the airline is eager to add to its fleet.”
While IndiGo continues to enjoy a massive lead over other Indian carriers due to its 300+ fleet, it still has to maintain its massive market share despite dozens of its Airbus narrowbodies being grounded due to Pratt & Whitney engine issues.
In October 2023, IndiGo had around 40 planes out of service and parked at various airports; today, that number has gone up to 70. While many of its aircraft are simply awaiting new engines that have been delayed due to the disruption in the global supply chain, some have been affected by recent issues with P&W engines.
Photo: BoeingMan777 | Shutterstock
In July 2023, RTX, the parent company of Pratt & Whitney, first disclosed the problems, saying “that a rare condition in powder metal used to manufacture certain engine parts will require accelerated fleet inspection.”
IndiGo is among many other carriers affected by this problem, given the popularity of the A320 jet, and hopefully, acquiring planes on short-term leases will help the airline maintain smooth operations.
On average, Spirit Airlines could have 25 grounded Airbus A320neo family aircraft in 2024.
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