New Delhi-based IndiGo is clearly making waves. The market leader and the only Indian airline to report steady profits, the carrier is now rapidly expanding fleet with a fresh order of 250 Airbus A320s, even as deliveries of 181 similar aircraft from a previous order is still pending. In a telephonic interview with Roudra Bhattacharya, president Aditya Ghosh talks of the immense confidence he has in the market, despite the immediate challenges. Excerpts:
This is a fairly large order in a market that has been tough for most airlines.
India is growing faster than we thought. It is a highly under-penetrated market with huge opportunity and the only way to stimulate demand is to add capacity. These aircraft will be deployed in both domestic and international routes.
Is the order limited to just 250 A320s?
We may convert some to the larger A321s later as we have done in the previous order where we converted 20. Above the current order for 250 A320s, we also have a purchase right for 100 more.
How will you finance this deal? Will you stick to primary sale and lease back model?
There is lots of time to think of financing because the deliveries will only start from 2018 and we are a very profitable company. It won?t be much different from what we have done in the past, a mix of bank finance, sale and lease back, and support from the European Export Credit Agency.
What will your fleet look like in the next few years?
Till date we have taken 99 deliveries and are operating 83 A320s. By December, we will have a fleet size of 90 aircraft. With the current demand in the market, it is really tough for us to give an exact picture for the next few years.
You are believed to be leasing some aircraft from Tigerair as well.
Yes, from end-October we will add 12 A320s to our fleet leased from Tiger over a six month period. These will stay in our fleet for 3-4 years, and will thus be older than the maximum age of our own fleet which is around six years.