India’s IndiGo Confirms Order to Buy 250 Airbus A320 Neo Planes

IndiGo, India’s biggest airline, firmed up an order to buy as many as 250 Airbus Group NV A320neo single-aisle jets, further strengthening the French planemaker’s lead over Boeing Co. in the country’s budget airline market.

The order is Airbus’s biggest by numbers, the planemaker said in an e-mailed statement today. With IndiGo’s order, Airbus has a backlog for more than 4,100 A320neo planes, the company said in the statement.

IndiGo’s move underscores growth plans for the decade-old budget carrier, which has a 38.4 percent share of the local market. The purchase is in line with ambitious targets of other Asian budget carriers, who are expanding to serve a burgeoning middle class in a fast-growing aviation market.

In January 2011 IndiGo ordered 180 planes worth $15 billion from Airbus, at the time the biggest order in commercial aviation history, as it builds toward its goal of a thousand-jet fleet. The carrier has taken delivery of more than 100 planes from that order so far. An Airbus A320 operated by IndiGo approaches Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai.