Indigo's A350 order- A game changer for the industry?

On the 25th of April, the aviation world was shocked when India's largest airline, Indigo, placed an order for 30 Airbus A350-900s with an option of 70 more making this the first widebody order for the airline and the second airline in India to order the type after Air India.

Rendering of the Indigo A350

Source-Airbus

A shocking order? Well not quite!

As I had mentioned earlier, this order, although shocking for the aviation world, wasn't completely unforeseeable. You see, being the largest airline in India, Indigo always had their eyes on long haul markets like Europe and the far east where Air India was the only airline serving it, however there was still a lot of unserved capacity due to shortage of aircrafts in India. Indigo already had the A321XLR on order and also had the likes of A330neo and the 787 Dreamliner on cards for expansion further to Europe and far east and add capacity on busy international trunk routes to Dubai and Singapore. The airline also operated 2 777-300ER from Turkish Airlines on their BOM/DEL-IST routes as a test for widebody operations before inducting their own aircraft.

A350 and Indigo. The perfect match?

Although this order was shocking for a lot of people including myself, this combination could very well prove to be a match made in heaven. Not only the A350 provides increased seating capacity over the A330neo/787, but also an increase in range. Not only this will allow the airline to serve Europe/Far East but also North American and Australian market which are massive unserved markets for Indigo to enter into.

A mixed class airline?

After the order, many industry experts were split on whether Indigo will introduce a full-fledged business class product on their A350s to compete with Air India or will the airline adapt a low-cost long-haul model similar to Norwegian and Wow air. However, with the news of the airline planning to introduce business class on their A321neos, Business class seems to be a part of the airlines plan. The airline may have a full-fledged business class with all amenities or have just the seats with paid addon amenities similar to Zipair's business class. However, only time shall tell what the plan is actually.

A threat to others?

With this order, Indigo has become an even bigger threat to Air India and even some gulf carriers who have historically had the lion's share of the international traffic to and from India. Air India, which is currently undergoing a massive change and expansion, is certainly feeling the heat of this order since the only market in which they had an advantage is under threat with this order and with the swifter management at Indigo as compared to Air India will take no time to secure slots and start flying to major long haul destinations like London.

Conclusion.

With this order, Indigo has quite certainly opened up a myriad of possibilities for the airline and its growth. It will be safe to say this is not only one of the most crucial orders in airline but also an extremely crucial order in civil aviation industry as this has the potential to shape the industry as a whole. However, only time shall tell the outcome of it.