Air India’s record-breaking aircraft purchase deal placed the airline and India’s former national carrier in the league of aspiring global carriers. On Tuesday, it provisionally agreed to purchase a total of about 500 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing to compete with local and international rivals owned by the Tata group. The biggest deal ever made by a single airline lasted for months of secret negotiations, a stone’s throw from Britain’s Buckingham Palace, culminating in a celebratory event by the sea and traditional Indian delicacies. The secrecy came on Tuesday when the respective leaders on both sides of the Pacific and across the Atlantic welcomed the deal with diplomatic hugs between the leading nations of the world’s richest G20. Tata Group, which last year regained control of Air India after several years in state hands, released a statement in just six paragraphs. And these undertones point to a new and growing chorus of private carrier owners looking to transform India’s financially unsustainable aviation industry in collaboration with the founders of IndiGo. The deal has been in the works for over a year, well-informed sources said, citing the details of the process on condition of anonymity.

In particular, serious negotiations began last summer and continued until a few days before Christmas, when schedules were agreed. And as the impressive scale of the deal began to crystallize, the Reuters news agency reported in December that the parties were approaching a record 500-aircraft deal. The hub of the deal was the luxurious St. The Victorian-era James Court, located near Buckingham Palace in London’s West End. In a classic negotiating ritual for the aerospace industry, the representatives of the air carrier, aviation companies and engine manufacturers negotiated for several days. All of them sought to capture a large share of a fast-growing market in which many ambitious airline plans were triumphantly announced and overthrown. Today, American Boeing has the opportunity to regain its position in the Indian narrow-body aircraft market and reduce the long-standing leadership of Airbus.

Airbus, again, wanted to get a bigger chunk of the wide-body aircraft market, where its competitor is in the lead. With the order books overflowing, neither of the two groups of aircraft could complete the entire order. “The combination of the country’s political will to restore dominance in international relations with the ambitions of the mighty Tata has all the ingredients to be really solid if done right,” said Airbus Chief Commercial Officer Christian Scherer. Negotiations between Air India’s Chief Commercial Officer for Transformation Nipun Agarwal and Yogesh Agarwal, Head of Aircraft Purchasing, often dragged on into the night when sellers made new, “better deals” as they were fed in their rooms.