Indigo Airlines is working with the aim of doubling its size by 2030 and is now planning to fly more international routes and destinations. The chief of Indigo, Pieter Elbers, alleged as the airline pursues soaring global ambitions to match the country’s economic growth potential. Indigo, the largest airline in India with a domestic market share of over 60 percent, is betting big on A321 XLR aircraft that are expected to start in 2025 and which help to further expand its overseas presence. He said, “XLRs will bring us to parts of Europe, Asia and places like Athens, Seoul, Rome… that will be a wonderful expansion of IndiGo,“
Elber also told PTI in an interview that the next crucial move for Indigo will be to double its size by the end of the decade. Indigo chief said, “For the next financial year starting April 2024, the capacity guidance in terms of seat capacity is “early double digits” and one plane is coming in every week.”
Also, for April 2024, Peter Elbers said that the capacity guidance associated with seat capacity is in the early double digits,, and one plane is coming every week. He also emphasized that the airline is now working on many mitigating measures bearing fruit and that the AOG situation is stable. Also,, in February 2024,, Indigo said the number of AOGs was in the mid-70s. At present,, the 17-year-old carrier operates to about 88 domestic and 33 international destinations and has a fleet of more than 360 planes.
Elber on this said, “An airline with double of today’s size, global reach and footprint by the year 2030. That is the ambitious target..”. He added that more codeshare partnerships can be expected soon. Thai code-sharing permits an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers to offer them seamless travel to many destinations. Currently, the airline has codeshares with British Airways, American Airways, Turkish Airways, Qatar Airways, Jetstar, KLM AirFrance, Virgin Atlantic and Qantas.
Also, Peter Elbers cited an example of services to Singapore that have increased and said, “Clearly, going forward, we will be seeing a number of new international destinations. We will have some domestic but more international… I would say. Especially, the opportunity to have more international routes, not per se destinations only”.
He set an example by saying that a year ago Indigo Airlines was flying to Singapore from three destinations, and today it operates to that country from more than seven destinations in India. He alleged, “I think we have a good opportunity to not only add destinations but even more… adding more routes to our network”.
According to Indigo Chief, a combination of new domestic and international routes will be an essential element in the airline’s to double its size by 20230 and for which the planning and groundwork has been done. That was in December 2023, Indigo declared that it carried 100 million passengers in a calendar year and achieved the milestone of being the first airline to do so.
Elbers said, “We should compare IndiGo to the global aviation landscape. India (set to become the third largest economy in the world), should and will have airlines matching the ambition of the country itself. So, 100 million was our target to be part of the top ten airlines in the world and today, we are the seventh largest in terms of daily departures….”
According to the Airline chief, Indigo is determined to play a crucial role in the country having a strong aviation ecosystem and said, “If home is the world’s most populous nation and home is soon going to be the third largest economy in the world, India should have an aviation ecosystem that is matching the size, potential and ambition of the country. IndiGo is determined to play a very strong role in that,”.
He also said “The foundations are important from a financial perspective, customer perspective, network perspective as also the big fleet order which we made in June last year. That gives us long-term visibility well into the next decade . We keep all options open and we evaluate, we take decisions for IndiGo that are matching the needs of the market and IndiGo at the appropriate time”.
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