IndiGo may go in for widebody A-330

NEW DELHI: The big boys of Indian aviation may be struggling to survive but a desi low-cost carrier is eying to enter a select league of budget carriers globally that operate widebody aircraft on medium to long-haul routes.

India’s largest LCC Indi-Go, which currently operates and has on order the single aisle Airbus A-320, is considering induction of the twin aisle Airbus A-330 into its fleet. In an all economy configuration, the A-330 can seat 300 passengers — compared to 180 in the A-320 in a similar configuration.

Airbus is learnt to be in talks with IndiGo and making a pitch for five to 10 A-330 s for the LCC. “We are considering this aircraft, but that process is in a preliminary stage right now,” said a senior IndiGo official, adding that the airline will stick to its current limit of about five-hour flights for this aircraft and willl also stick to the low cost model.

“We are not thinking of longhaul flights like India-London or Paris. We will stick to flights of up to about five-hour duration. Longer flights would mean changing the current LCC model of cold snacks and no inflight entertainment, something we are not at all going to touch. If we decide on the A-330 , it will be deployed on routes of about fivesix hours,” said the official.

At the moment, only one big LCC globally uses widebody aircraft for long-haul routes. Malaysian budget airline Air Asia Xcurrently operates the A-330 to fly between its base Kuala Lumpur and distant places like Delhi, Mumbai, London, Paris, Tokyo, China and Australia. Singapore Airlines is also learnt to be planning to launch a longhaul LCC called Scoot, based on the Air Asia X model.

The success of LCC model comes from factors like having one type of aircraft in fleet; short-to-medium haul flights; quick turnaround time of aircraft and more frequencies on the sectors they fly. Global budget biggies like EasyJet, South-West and Air Asia and desi ones like IndiGo, SpiceJet (that flies to neighbouring countries) and GoAir (that does not fly international ) follow this model.