AS INDIGO TAXIES TO BECOME A GLOBAL AVIATION GIANT, CEO PIETER ELBERS TALKS ABOUT EXPANSION PLANS AND STRATEGY, AND WHY THE CARRIER FORAYED INTO BUSINESS CLASS AFTER 18 YEARS OF OPERATIONS.

As IndiGo tops the valuation charts globally, how big is the future of India's aviation sector?

- SOURAV MAJUMDAR AND KARAN DHAR

I joined IndiGo two and half years ago. In my initial conversations with Rahul Bhatia (promoter and MD of IndiGo's parent firm InterGlobe Aviation), he said: “I know the opportunity for India is enormous. But I don't know how enormous.” That summarises it.

When I joined in 2022, the mandate was to transform IndiGo into a global aviation giant. Today, India is the fifth-largest economy in the world. By 2027, it will be the third largest. India deserves an airline of a size, scale, and opportunity that is a fair reflection of the country, what it stands for, and what it will be in the future. By that notion, we put a point on the horizon (2030) and launched a strategy towards “new heights and across new frontiers”. Two years later, people have started seeing us connecting the dots—internationalisation, wide-body [aircraft], stretch products, and loyalty link-up with Accor.

How much of this plan has been actioned? How much has been achieved?

There is no end point. If you start somewhere, you put a point on the horizon—2030. But there is no such thing as a finishing line. Big decisions such as ordering A350 aircraft and having a premium product in metro routes have been taken. But we are only getting started with the tougher aspects such as execution. For example, when it comes to internationalisation, operating flights from Bengaluru or Mumbai to Krabi, Thailand is different from starting operations to Amsterdam and Manchester.

My lesson after two years in India is: go big or go home. That's the philosophy behind IndiGoStretch, which we implemented in 12 months. We will get 45 Stretch planes in one year. A new Stretch plane comes in every week. It usually takes a long time. This is scalability. The strength of IndiGo and its people is that we can scale up quickly. We had 1,600 daily flights when I joined. Today, we have 2,300.