Paris: Airbus SE’s new A321 XLR narrow-body jet secured the seventh customer since its launch on Monday as Bill Franke’s Indigo Partners purchased 50 of the planes for its stable of discount airlines.
Indigo’s order for the extra-long-range model, announced Wednesday at the Paris Air Show, comes almost two years after the investment firm bought 430 A320neo and A321neo jetliners in Airbus’s biggest-ever order.
The deal comprises 32 new orders worth about $4.5 billion at list prices, and the conversion of 18 of the earlier planes to the longer-range jet. The XLRs will be used by three Indigo units — Budapest-based Wizz Air Holdings Plc, Eastern Europe’s biggest discount airline, Frontier Airlines of the US, which aims to fly them coast to coast and could add Hawaii and Alaska, and Chile’s JetSmart.
Indigo-owned carriers now operate a combined 295 Airbus planes and with the new commitments have 636 on order.
