We are slowly being offered glimpses of the Boeing 777 aircraft that will soon be operated by low-cost carrier (LCC) IndiGo on a route between Delhi (DEL) and Istanbul (IST).
We were first given the chance to see the painting process the aircraft underwent at the Turkish Technic facilities in Istanbul, Turkey on March 14, 2023, after the MRO subsidiary of Turkish Airlines shared images on its Twitter account.
On March 22, 2023, Turkish Technic released the first pictures of the Boeing 777 outside the paint facility, wearing the full IndiGo livery.
Turkish Airlines and IndiGo have already been codesharing flights between Istanbul and India and IndiGo had already wet-leased Boeing 777s from the Turkish flag carrier, but until now these had been operating under THY’s livery.
Before joining Turkish Airlines’ fleet, the aircraft, a Boeing 777-300ER, was operating for Russian charter airline Azur Air.
In this regard, it seems that IndiGo will not alter the cabin interior used by the Russian operator, so the Indian LCC will operate the aircraft with a rather dense cabin fitted with seven business and 524 economy class seats.
Two additional B777-300ERs with the same configuration will be painted and inducted into IndiGo’s fleet in order to enable the airline to operate flights between Istanbul and Mumbai (BOM).