Gurgaon firm to buy 100 Airbus for $6 bn

‘‘They’re all Airbus’, fully-purchased and for nationwide air-routes, for which we have had the required NOCs for two years. This is long-awaited and well-deserved,’’ said Seema Luthra, vice president strategy and chief marketing officer, InterGlobe.

InterGlobe’s promoter partners include Rakesh Gangwal, the former CEO of US Airways, and Rahul Bhatia, the MD of InterGlobe.

Together, they pushed into the shadows the $7 billion worth of new aircraft ordered by the private carriers—Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and Paramount Airways.

With IndiGo in, India has placed orders worth a whopping Rs 57,000 crore for 150 aircraft at the Paris air show.

For the moment, IndiGo has plans to take 2 million passengers on board in a year.

The analysts are thrilled. ‘‘India has 192 aircraft, the US 6,000, Europe 4,000 and China 850. So you know where we are. This is the sort of deal we need and they will keep coming in the years ahead,’’ says Kapil Kaul, Mid-East and South Asia aviation head with CFAPA, a global advisory firm.

IndiGo is also the result of extensive analysis and planning by airline executives at InterGlobe.

‘‘We have had the best heads in aviation at our side during the last two years, and we will announce our management team in two weeks,’’ said Luthra.

‘‘The aviation industry in India is on the threshold of the next big revolution and IndiGo is ideally positioned,’’ said Bhatia.

For the moment, the company has left pricing to ‘dynamic market forces,’ but promises the opportunity is large enough to accommodate a lot more players.

‘‘IndiGo will serve the nation’s air travellers with superior customer service and provide great value for money,’’ said Atlanta-based Gangwal.