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Indigo Partners

private equity firm

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ43215330
Source-derived summary

Indigo Partners, LLC is an American private equity firm which has a controlling interest in the American Frontier Airlines and Chilean low-cost JetSmart, as well as holding stakes in Mexican budget airline Volaris and European (Hungarian) low-cost carrier Wizz Air. The company had a partnership with Enerjet when it launched the now defunct Canadian ultra-low-cost carrier Lynx Air.

Indigo Partners was founded by Bill Franke and has set up a number of low-cost airlines around the world. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.

History

At the November 2017 Dubai Air Show, Indigo Partners signed a memorandum of understanding for 430 Airbus Aircraft: 273 A320neos and 157 A321neos for $49.5 billion at list prices: 146 aircraft will go to Wizz Air, 134 to Frontier Airlines, 80 to Volaris and 70 to JetSmart. Wizz will get 72 A320neo and 74 A321neo, Frontier 100 A320neo and 34 A321neo, Volaris 46 A320neo and 34 A321neo and JetSmart 56 A320neo and 14 A321neo.

Deliveries began in 2021, but most were delivered in 2025-26 from Toulouse, France and Mobile, Alabama, U.S. Wizz Air previously ordered 110 A321neos at the 2015 Paris Airshow and its fleet will grow to 300 aircraft by 2025. Frontier received its first Airbus from Mobile in 2018 and its fleet will triple to 200, flying 50 million passengers in 2026.

On November 29, 2018, Indigo Partners reached a preliminary agreement to buy Icelandic low-cost carrier WOW Air after Icelandair Group dropped its takeover. However, on March 22, 2019, it was reported that Indigo Partners had withdrawn their offer to purchase Wow Air.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Indigo Partners” is private equity firm. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Indigo, Partners and private, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2017, 2021, 2025, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2002. For this dossier, Indigo, Partners and private is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “private equity firm” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q43215330. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2021, 2025 and 2015.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Indigo Partners”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Indigo Partners primary sources, Indigo Partners archive and Indigo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Indigo Partners”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Indigo Partners” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.