ISTANBUL Airbus is closing in on a potentially record deal to sell 500 narrowbody A320-family jets to India's largest carrier, Indigo, industry sources said on Sunday.

The European planemaker has emerged as front-runner for an order eclipsing Air India's historic provisional purchase of 470 jets in February, the sources said on the sidelines of an airline industry meeting in Istanbul.

Airbus and Boeing are also competing in talks to sell 25 wide-body jets to the same airline, they said.

IndiGo, which is already a major Airbus customer with a large number of planes on order, and the France-based planemaker both declined comment. Boeing also declined to comment.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Aditi Shah and Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Hugh Lawson)