Over 1000 airliners on order by Indian carriers

With over 1,000 airliners on order or option, India is poised to become the third-largest buyer of commercial passenger aircraft in the world after the US and China. The aircraft order book of the Indian airline industry will soon touch 1,080, which would mean that for every aircraft in service, there will be 2. 2 aircraft on order, according to a report released by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA). There are an estimated 480 airliners in service at present, with another 880 on order, most of these placed by lowcost carriers such as IndiGo and SpiceJet. Jet Airways and Vistara are expected to add to the total and take this to a four-digit number even as more than 700 are scheduled for delivery within the next decade, and 400 within the next five years.

In March 2017, India became the third-largest domestic aviation market in the world, surpassing Japan. India’s domestic air passenger traffic stood at 100 million in 2016 and was only behind the US (719 million) and China (436 million). In the year ended 31 March 2017, Mumbai airport surpassed London’s Gatwick to become the world’s busiest airport with a single runway.