“This contract is a major win for our aerospace sector. @Airbus’s deal with @IndiGo6E will be worth billions to the UK and support thousands of jobs across the country – helping to grow the economy,” the UK prime minister tweeted on Tuesday, a day after the two companies signed the contract.

While primarily French, Airbus, it must be noted, is a multinational aerospace corporation with offices and assembly plants in several countries, including both France and the UK. Its corporate name, in fact, is ‘Airbus SE;’ the ‘SE’ bit, which stands for ‘societas Europaea’ (European company/society), enables the company to register itself as a European corporation, rather than a national corporation.

IndiGo’s ‘thank you’ to Rishi Sunak

Meanwhile, responding to Sunak, the United Kingdom’s first Asian (Indian)-origin prime minister, IndiGo thanked him for his ‘encouraging words.’

“Our partnership with @Airbus will indeed further propel growth in the aerospace sector and together this will help drive prosperity through increased travel and commerce. Thank you for your support,” the Gurugram-headquartered India’s largest budget carrier said in a tweet.

IndiGo-Airbus deal

Under the ‘largest-ever’ purchase in the history of commercial aviation– it is worth $55 billion – IndiGo will buy 500 A320 aircraft from Airbus, with the planes to be delivered between 2030-2035. Including these 500 planes, the budget carrier has, since its 2006 inception, ordered a massive total of 1,330 aircraft from the multinational corporation.