IndiGo starting to make India a global aviation hub: CEO Pieter Elbers

IndiGo, which placed its first-ever order for widebody planes last Thursday, is now on the path to establish itself as a global aviation player and make India a global aviation hub, said its Chief Executive Officer, Pieter Elbers, on Tuesday.

“We have demonstrated over the years that we maintain a cost leadership (lowest unit cost in India). On top of that, we are exploring this opportunity, and we are taking a number (30 wide-body aircraft) which will be meaningful enough to have an impact yet prudent enough not to move into a direction where we may face some headwinds. That balance of being impactful enough and prudent enough is reflected in the order,” Elbers said during a conference with industry analysts.

He said that as IndiGo is advancing towards “becoming a global aviation player,” it has forged an agreement with Airbus to procure 30 A350-900 aircraft.

Additionally, the airline holds the option to order an additional 70 A350 family planes.

IndiGo currently stands as India’s largest carrier, holding a fleet of approximately 370 planes, all of which are narrow-body aircraft.

Elbers said, “We have such a great network domestically. It is a great foundation in India. Today, we serve 88 domestic destinations.” IndiGo connects major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru to 50 domestic destinations within the country. 

“We are starting to grow...We are starting to build India into a global aviation hub and one of the characteristics of an aviation hub is that you are sitting on a strong (domestic) market, which IndiGo clearly does, and has the opportunity to start connecting. We first gained experience with domestic connectivity, then recently, we moved to building domestic-to-international connectivity, and even more recently, we have started to develop international-to-international connectivity,” he noted.

For international-to-international connectivity, he gave an example of passengers traveling from Tbilisi, Georgia, to Delhi and then to Phuket, Thailand, using IndiGo’s network.

Elbers did not specify if the A350-900 aircraft, which will be delivered from 2027 onwards, will have business class seats or not. “We keep all our options open,” he replied when asked about this matter.

He said that Indian carriers’ share in the long-haul market (flight time more than six hours) is quite small.

“If you were to differentiate between the international market in the four-hour range and what is beyond the six-hour range, you will see an overall linear decline in the market share of Indian carriers. Against this backdrop, it is a natural evolution to bring that market share back to levels that are more common in other parts of the world,” he noted.

“We actually have a lot of customers -- and it is not a small number -- who wish to fly with us on international routes as well which today we can't serve,” Elbers mentioned.

Currently, about 27 per cent of IndiGo's total capacity is deployed on international routes.

“If you take a step back, and if you look at this opportunity more on a global scale, rather than just on an Indian scale, the US carriers are serving their international network from different hubs and points. The European airline groups are serving their network from different points. I think in India we have wonderful opportunities to do the very same thing. So, different airports will have different networks. Some of it overlapping, some of it unique. We will, going forward, collaborate and see how we can build that," he mentioned.