India’s ‘unknown’ biggest airline pushes for global expansion

Last September, Pieter Elbers became CE of India’s largest airline, IndiGo, and quickly discovered what it is like to be overlooked. A budget carrier specialising in domestic routes, IndiGo flew more than twice as many passengers last year as AirAsia, Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways. But few people outside its home country had heard about it. “In my observation, IndiGo is such a great and well-respected brand in India,” Elbers told Nikkei Asia. “But outside India, [the perception of the airline] is neither positive nor negative. It’s just unknown.” Elbers is hoping to change that. The 52-year-old — who joined IndiGo after serving nearly eight years as CE of Dutch carrier KLM — is making international expansion a priority, setting the stage for more intense competition with regional rivals, including India’s second-biggest carrier, Tata Group’s Air India. IndiGo flies Airbus aircraft to 26 international destinations and reaches 30 European cities under a code-share agreement with Turkish Airlines that enables either carrier to sell seats on its partner’s planes. Elbers said IndiGo would soon start flying to Nairobi and Jakarta, and was in talks to sign a code-share agreement to expand to the US. It is awaiting delivery of A321XLR aircraft from Airbus, which can fly longer distances and will help IndiGo grow further in Europe, south-east Asia and north-east Asia. “Our position in international [travel] is still, I would say, modest, but internationalisation is going to be a very important part of our road map going forward,” Elbers said. At the same time, he pledged that IndiGo would “develop the domestic network, which remains the core of the company”, with a goal of “serving every city which has an airport of some size”.<br/>