Indigo looking for wide-body plane for long distance flights

NEW DELHI: IndiGo on Tuesday said it is scouting for an aircraft to launch direct services to long haul destinations including London. This is the first time the low-cost carrier has issued a statement regarding its plan to launch flights to long-haul markets, and it comes at a time when a void has been created by the grounding of Jet Airways.Until recently, Jet was the only private carrier that was offering flight connections between India and London. National carrier Air India is the other airline.“Clearly, at this point we are range limited. (Airbus 321) XLR is a great plane, we think, but that plane cannot reach London. The plane can take us to Seoul and we would be looking at markets like these through XLR,” said IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta, adding that the airline is still discussing a model for its wide-body aircraft.“We are looking at the plan for wide body. It would not make sense if we launch wide-body aircraft without business class. So, we are discussing every day to ensure what model we follow to make wide-body operations work,” Dutta said, adding that executives brainstorm every Tuesday on the issue.Dutta said a large part of Indigo’s growth over the next few years will come from international flights. “We are very optimistic about international. We would grow by about 30% annually for the next few years and we expect that half of that growth will go international, half will go domestic,” Dutta said.On the domestic market, Dutta said Indigo is connecting through ATRs several smaller cities where Airbus 320s cannot fly.

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