IndiGo taps into ‘big unlock’ in Indian aviation
IndiGo is capitalising on a “big unlock” in Indian aviation, expanding its network into non-traditional markets and seeing significant success across several regions.
With India’s rapidly growing economy and a burgeoning middle class driving strong demand, the airline, which primarily serves routes within a five-hour radius of India, has been gradually venturing into new territories over the past two years.
Speaking to Aerospace Global News at Routes Asia 2025 in Perth, Australia, Abhijit Dasgupta, the carrier’s head of network planning and revenue management, highlighted the airline’s success in various regions. These include promising uptake of its connections to Central Asia, which has prompted it to increase flight frequencies sooner than initially planned.
The airline has also expanded its footprint into Indonesia, Africa, and more recently, several popular Asian leisure destinations such as Mauritius, Penang, Langkawi, Seychelles, and Krabi.
The airline’s efforts have been met with encouraging responses, indicating strong demand and an appetite for more international routes.
Dasgupta said that numerous opportunities remain in these emerging markets, and IndiGo will continue to push forward with its expansion strategy, tapping into the growing potential of the region.
“There is this big unlock that we are seeing in all the markets that we operate to, in these five hour radius markets, and we’ve been gradually over the last two years, pushing out into some non traditional markets,” he said.
“We started operations to Central Asia, which have been so successful that it forced us to ramp up frequency faster than we had originally planned. We started operations into Indonesia.
“We started the operations into Africa. And we’ve just started in the last six months, markets like Mauritius and Penang and Langkawi and Seychelles and Krabi – all of them are seeing very encouraging responses, which speaks to the appetite in the market.”
Additionally, IndiGo is targeting European destinations, including Amsterdam and Manchester, as part of its growth plan.
To facilitate this expansion, IndiGo has placed an order for 30 Airbus A350-900 aircraft, with deliveries expected to begin in 2027.
Dasgupta added: “Today, all of the traffic is flowing over hubs in the Middle East, not just the India traffic, but also all of the other traffic. So, we think non-stop Europe flights are quite an exciting opportunity.”
