The Rahul Bhatia interview: How IndiGo won, with excellence in execution
For 20 years, IndiGo has been focused purely on the low-cost carrier model. IndiGo is now changing — there's IndiGo Stretch, there's the widebody aircraft
For 20 years, IndiGo has been focused purely on the low-cost carrier model. IndiGo is now changing — there's IndiGo Stretch, there's the widebody aircraft you're looking at, there's your loyalty programme. Quite a few things are different now. How do you look at IndiGo over the next five to ten years? So, loyalty is something which will become a self-sustaining programme.
It will earn its own money. The airline will not support it; it will support it on an arm's length basis, and any inventory exchanged will be sold at market prices. But BluChip will eventually become a standalone business that stands on its own feet, and I think we are very confident we will get there. Just because you are adding some complexity to your model does not mean you're straying away from the low-cost mentality.
So, when we mutate the model, you still have to maintain cost leadership. If we bring in a stretch programme, the stretch product itself has to have cost leadership; and if it does, hopefully, you'll find customers. The same is true with the widebodies. As we bring them in, it'll be a three-cabin aircraft. And we are fairly confident, based on the results we have seen over the last two years since we've been flying some widebodies into Europe—the results are quite encouraging.
We really believe that once we start getting our own planes and putting our partnerships with other airlines together, this will earn its own dinner.
The BriefWire