NEW DELHI: India’s largest airline by passenger carriage, IndiGo, will finally be operating wide body aircraft this winter. The airline will take on wet lease — take planes with operating crew — twin aisles that will operate medium to long range routes with both business and economy cabins. As of now, Air India and Vistara are the only two Indian carriers that use wide bodies for operating passenger flights.
“International air travel is going through a strong period of recovery, and demand continues to rise in the upcoming festive and winter season. This is a positive sign for the industry and IndiGo remains very bullish on strong growth for international travel to and from India in the future. However, as the aviation industry globally continues to face significant supply chain disruptions, we have been exploring a multitude of solutions to enable us to continue our operations smoothly and to provide our customers with efficient and affordable travel,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.
“As an interim measure, we have decided to take on wet/ damp lease certain aircraft to cover the shortfall for our scheduled international operations. We have received an in-principle approval from the regulators for the same and the induction of these aircrafts remains subject to further requisite regulatory approvals. We are committed to exploring every opportunity possible to overcome these capacity challenges and provide our customers with efficient and affordable air travel,” she added.
Since starting new routes at such short notice is not an option, industry insiders say IndiGo will deploy the wide bodies on high density medium range routes it already operates using its current fleet of Airbus A320 family of planes. This could routes like Delhi-Istanbul. And Mumbai-Istanbul that will start from January 1, 2023.
“International air travel is going through a strong period of recovery, and demand continues to rise in the upcoming festive and winter season. This is a positive sign for the industry and IndiGo remains very bullish on strong growth for international travel to and from India in the future. However, as the aviation industry globally continues to face significant supply chain disruptions, we have been exploring a multitude of solutions to enable us to continue our operations smoothly and to provide our customers with efficient and affordable travel,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.
“As an interim measure, we have decided to take on wet/ damp lease certain aircraft to cover the shortfall for our scheduled international operations. We have received an in-principle approval from the regulators for the same and the induction of these aircrafts remains subject to further requisite regulatory approvals. We are committed to exploring every opportunity possible to overcome these capacity challenges and provide our customers with efficient and affordable air travel,” she added.
Since starting new routes at such short notice is not an option, industry insiders say IndiGo will deploy the wide bodies on high density medium range routes it already operates using its current fleet of Airbus A320 family of planes. This could routes like Delhi-Istanbul. And Mumbai-Istanbul that will start from January 1, 2023.
