IndiGo Airlines (6E, Delhi International) plans to retire all 42 of its second-hand A320-200s in 2022, Chief Financial Officer of parent InterGlobe Aviation Aditya Pande said during the quarterly earnings call.

"By December 2022, we expect all of them to go away. We will start returning these aircraft starting 2021, so you will see the proportion of the A320ceo that are leased and used going down in our fleet. And as we get to December 2022, we have all these aircraft returned by that time," he said.

He clarified that the plan only concerned aircraft added as used equipment by IndiGo Airlines, not the A320-200s the Indian LCC took directly from Airbus.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, IndiGo Airlines currently operates 123 A320-200s. The entire subfleet is 9.8 years old on average. However, the 42 second-hand jets waiver above this average with the oldest being almost 18 years old. The aircraft were previously operated by a range of airlines around the world, including Aegean Airlines (one aircraft), Air Berlin (1991) (three), Air Via (one), Alitalia (one), American Airlines (two), Avion Express (two), Cyprus Airways (1947) (one), Freebird Airlines (one), GoAir (two), Jetstar Pacific (one), LATAM Airlines (two), LATAM Airlines Brasil (one), Qatar Airways (four), Rossiya (one), Royal Brunei Airlines (four), Scoot (three), Spring Airlines (one), SriLankan Airlines (one), Tigerair Australia (one), Tigerair Philippines (one), TransAsia Airways (one), Turkish Airlines (two), VietJetAir (one), VivaAerobus (two), Volaris (one), and Vueling Airlines (one).

The oldest of the eighty-one A320-200s directly from Airbus is almost 12 years of age.

The Indian LCC also operates ninety-six A320-200neo and ten A321-200neo, as well as twenty-five ATR72-600s.

Chief Executive Ronojoy Dutta pointed out that the carrier's fleet of A320neo Family aircraft gives it the flexibility to serve markets as distant as Denpasar, Barcelona El Prat, or Seoul Incheon.

"Wide-body is a project that is ongoing. We keep studying it with different perspectives. No decision has been made," he said.

He elaborated that through using narrowbodies of the newest generation, the airline can serve medium-haul markets with higher frequency.

"You don't need a widebody to go to the Middle East. We have enough A321neo to serve the Middle East quite properly. And please also remember, traffic tends to fragment by frequency, not by seats. So would I rather have two frequencies or one large wide-body? I think I will get more market share by going with frequency," Dutta said.

The airline has a further 236 A320neo and 388 A321neo on firm order from Airbus and is, by far, the world's largest A320neo Family customer.