Among the eye-catching announcements at this week’s Farnborough International Airshow, a biennial aerospace get-together, was a deal signed by IndiGo, a fast-growing Indian carrier. It will procure over 1,000 Leap jet engines from cfm, a joint venture between America’s ge Aerospace and Safran of France. The engines will power a fleet of planes on order from Airbus. For CFM, the deal brought another prize: the company will help IndiGo establish a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operation to keep those engines running. Often overlooked, such MRO contracts are perhaps the most profitable corner of the aviation industry.
