CFM offered better terms for deal at centre of IndiGo row

Mumbai: IndiGo’s decision to drop Pratt and Whitney (P&W) in favour of CFM International for a $20 billion jet engine contract for its fleet of 280 Airbus A320neo and A321neo planes was driven by commercial considerations and not just technical or performance criteria, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

“P&W did submit an offer but it could not better its earlier offer to IndiGo, which had a generous compensation factor in case of glitches,” one of the two people cited earlier said on condition of anonymity, adding that IndiGo chose CFM engines “purely on the basis of commercial benefits and technical issues were not the reasons for the airline to ditch the fuel-efficient P&W engines”.