New Delhi, September 18. French aerospace major Thales has entered into an 11-year strategic maintenance agreement with IndiGo, India’s largest airline, to support its expanding Airbus fleet.
The deal covers IndiGo’s current fleet of 430 Airbus A320 aircraft as well as its future order of more than 800 A32X jets. Under the agreement, Thales will provide comprehensive repair services for avionics systems through its ‘Avionics-By-The-Hour’ and ‘Repair-By-The-Hour’ programmes, aimed at minimising downtime and ensuring faster turnaround of aircraft.
Much of the repair work will be undertaken at Thales’s newly established avionics maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Gurugram, near Delhi airport. The state-of-the-art centre is equipped with advanced systems to meet growing demand from Indian carriers and will be staffed by Thales technicians trained to maintain complex avionics in line with global safety standards.
IndiGo has also renewed a five-year contract with AvioBook, a Thales subsidiary, for its AvioBook Flight solution. The digital Electronic Flight Bag system, which is authorised by India’s aviation regulator DGCA for fully paperless cockpit operations, has been in use across IndiGo’s fleet for over a year. It has helped the airline reduce paper consumption and improve efficiency across more than 2,000 daily flights.
Parichay Datta, Senior Vice-President (Engineering) at IndiGo, said the partnership strengthens the airline’s maintenance and repair capabilities as it scales up operations.
“This association aligns with our commitment to offer a hassle-free and safe flying experience to our customers, while ensuring operational excellence and reliability,” he noted.
Thomas Got, Vice-President, Aviation Global Services at Thales, said the agreement highlights Thales’s growing role in India’s aviation ecosystem.
“Our new MRO facility in India increases our ability to provide swift, reliable service, backed by the power of our global organisation, to meet the evolving demands of the Indian aviation industry,” he said.
