In the world of aviation, one should never say never. And what airline is the current poster boy of being flexible and doing whatever it takes to keep the network alive and growing? IndiGo. Fly a widebody? Naah. Have a loyalty programme? Naah. And fly only with the A320 family aircraft? Naah. And all of those, they made a change of heart later. More change of heart will happen in August when IndiGo reveals its plans for a Business product.

IndiGo will damp lease Qatar Airways’ 737 MAX aircraft

IndiGo already had 40-45 aircraft on the ground and another 30 or so grounded because of the new issues that surfaced with their Pratt and Whitney GTF Engines, taking the number of grounded aircraft to over 70. This number was reconfirmed today on the conference call with analysts after IndiGo disclosed their Q1FY25 Results.

IndiGo has already used Turkish Airlines’ wet-leased 777 jets for flights between India and Istanbul. They’ve also wet-leased about a dozen A320 jets from a European carrier. While scouring for more A320 aircraft is ongoing, IndiGo has older generation aircraft (ceo) creeping back into the fleet via various leasing arrangements. 15% more fuel consumption is a small price to keep schedules, slots, market share and revenue in line. Plus, their arrangement with Pratt and Whitney must offer enough for them to add more aircraft, even on bad terms and still come out ahead.

The airline had also considered adding some Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to its fleet on a damp lease to cope with the aircraft shortage, which first came to light in February 2024. IndiGo has also recently started updating seat maps again.

Today, on the results conference call, IndiGo’s CEO, Pieter Elbers, confirmed that the airline will proceed with the damp lease of aircraft from Qatar Airways. The airline will damp lease six aircraft from Qatar Airways out of the nine aircraft they have in their fleet of this type. Qatar Airways will operate these flights between Doha and various Indian stations on behalf of IndiGo, and the flights will carry an IndiGo flight number starting with 6E instead of QR. However, Qatar Airways will take care of the operation of the aircraft, maintenance, and insurance. IndiGo will only have its cabin crew taking care of the cabin services on board.

India and Qatar have a bilateral agreement for 25,000 seats flown per week for each side’s carriers. This agreement was last revised in 2009 and completely exhausted by the Qatari side. In this case, Qatar Airways gets to ply the passengers and generate revenue, while IndiGo issues the tickets and keeps a share of the revenue. The operation of the damp lease will also mean that the bilaterals utilised will be from the Indian side of the bilateral quota.

Here is the seat map on the IndiGo website for the first of these flights, a Delhi to Doha flight to be operated on August 1, 2024. When one goes to the Details section for the flight, there is no equipment detail. However, you can see the seat map of a Qatar Airways aircraft.

The IndiGo XL seats are in row 3 now, and Rows 1 and 2 are empty. And here is the seat map for Qatar Airways’ 737 MAX 8.

IndiGo also has seat selection charges on its website, including the 737 MAX 8.

However, Qatar Airways’ website shows the flight being operated by a Boeing 737 aircraft.

Qatar Airways only recently inducted the Boeing 737 MAX 8 into its fleet, with all nine aircraft coming into the fleet between April and June 2023. The airline currently uses these aircraft to fly short-haul within the Middle East itself. The furthest they take them to is Baku and Tlibisi in Central Asia. Each 737 8 aircraft has 168 Economy Class seats and 8 Business Class seats.

Here are the current planned operations of the 737 MAX taking over the IndiGo Doha routes at the moment:

• Doha – Mumbai and v.v. on August 1, 2024 (1x Daily, now, 3x Daily on August 22, onwards)
• Doha – Chennai and v.v. on August 7, 2024 (1x Daily)
• Doha – Kochi and v.v. on August 1, 2024 (6x Weekly)
• Doha – Kannur and v.v. on August 9, 2024 (1x Daily)
• Doha – Bengaluru and v.v. on August 10, 2024 (1x Daily)
• Doha – Hyderabad and v.v. on August 14, 2024 (13x Weekly)
• Doha – Delhi and v.v. on August 20, 2024 (2x Daily)

Once all of this is done, 75 weekly frequencies will be operated by these substitute equipment, which, for now, offer a better passenger experience in terms of seats and personal electronic device holders (in comparison to IndiGo’s aircraft). What is interesting, for now, is that Qatar Airways or IndiGo are not selling business cabins on these flights.

This seems like a great move for IndiGo. Every aircraft counts at the moment, and if they can get it, they’d love to take it. The festive season is coming up, and as many aircraft are up in the air, many more people can fly, and the airline makes money.

Bottomline

IndiGo has confirmed that it will damp lease six Boeing 737 MAX 8 Aircraft from its codeshare partner airline, Qatar Airways. The airline will use these aircraft to operate at international capacity, freeing up its aircraft, which are available for other routes. The Qatar Airways 737 MAX 8s are equipped with 168 Economy and 8 Business Class seats.

What do you think of this new move by IndiGo to add capacity via a damp lease from Qatar Airways?

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