New Planes Every Week For a Decade: IndiGo CEO Eyes Global Growth

26.01.2024 - 11:21 / skift.com / Ras Al-Khaimah / Pieter Elbers / Air India

As president and CEO of one of Europe’s most prestigious flag carriers, Pieter Elbers was at the top of his game. He successfully navigated Dutch airline KLM through the 2010s and the worst of the pandemic – it seemed like there was little he couldn’t do. 

So when it was announced in early 2022 that he wouldn’t seek a third term as KLM chief, many expected him to take on an easier, if not cozy, new job somewhere. Elbers would be safe in the knowledge that his name was already made. 

What transpired was a totally different turn of events. The Dutchman was soon bound for Delhi to head up one of the country’s biggest businesses. This was a monumental challenge but an opportunity too good to resist for the aviation aficionado. 

IndiGo is India’s largest airline by fleet size and one of Airbus’ biggest customers. It boasts more than half of the nation’s total market share – no mean feat in the world’s most populous country. 

Elbers’ brief upon joining the airline was clear but colossal. He was to develop and execute a strategic plan to transform IndiGo into a global powerhouse. Central to this goal was international expansion, but not at the expense of domestic growth.

Speaking to Skift on the fringes of the Wings India 2024 event in Hyderabad, Elbers outlined how the intra-India growth opportunity remains huge. 

Last year, 153 million people traveled by air domestically in a country of more than 1.4 billion. By the end of the decade, this figure is expected to reach 300 million, and IndiGo intends to be a big part of that. 

In simple terms, Elbers wants to double the airline’s capacity over the next seven years, mirroring national growth: “It’s no coincidence that doubling towards the end of the decade from 150 to 300 [million] for Indian domestic markets is also very much aligned with the ambition of IndiGo, of doubling between today and the end of the decade.”

Elbers highlighted that India’s domestic air market is already the third largest in the world and the fifth largest internationally. In 2022, immediately after joining IndiGo, he said he wanted the airline to expand to more cross-border destinations in 2023. Despite industry-wide headwinds, the goal was met. IndiGo went from 26 international cities served in 2022, to 32 last year.  

Put another way, the UAE coastal resort of Ras Al-Khaimah joined the route map as IndiGo’s 100th destination in September 2022. The carrier has added 18 more destinations since then. These include some that were not served by any other Indian airline, such as Baku, Tbilisi, and Almaty in Central Asia.

“Looking at the size of the population, India’s taken its rightful place on the global stage. That’s really helping to further boost international travel, so that’s been