At a time when the aviation sector has hit an air pocket with major airlines like Jet Airways running into losses and Kingfisher Airlines shutting shop, IndiGo keeps flying high. The winner in the airline sweepstakes was founded in 2006 under the leadership of Rahul Bhatia. The fastest-growing and biggest airline in the country has overtaken established players with a market share of around 38 per cent operates to 38 destinations, including five international ones, with a fleet of 96 aircraft. In January 2011, it got the licence to start international flights, and its first global service was launched between New Delhi and Dubai on September 1 that year.
Deep Kalra (featured on this page) says of IndiGo that low fares do not mean low quality. The airline boss, Rahul Bhatia, understood the maths of overhead costs fast: service at economy rates, punctuality, cleanliness of the planes whose average age is below three years, onboard crew which collects trash from passengers before the aircraft lands and gets them to pull down the window shades and rearrange their seat belts, which helps IndiGo achieve turnarounds of less than 30 minutes between flights. The Gurgaon-headquartered airline stays on course with net earnings in FY 2014-15 estimated at $100 million. A foodie, Bhatia, who owns four restaurants, including L’Angoor in Mumbai, has $1.9 billion as net worth of his own. To keep fares low, the low-cost carrier does not provide complimentary meals in any of its flights, though it does have a buy-on-board meal programme.
Now, as the company prepares for an initial public offering (IPO) by the year-end, seeking $500 million, the IPO would value IndiGo at $4 billion, six-and-a-half times the market value of its nearest competitor, Jet Airways, and 18 times that of SpiceJet. With campaigns like ‘Sleep With Your Wife’ and ‘Late Is a Four-Letter Word’, IndiGo’s success mantra is not only low-price tickets but also on-time flying and same-day return, which have become its biggest strengths.