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Want to go for a vacation to Beijing, Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi, Jakarta, Manila or may be eastern Europe. Then think no more as IndiGo is planning to launch overseas flights of up to seven hours duration from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, some of them with its longer-range Airbus A321s. Although all these depends on countries lifting Covid-related restrictions and regular international flights resumes.
“As soon as this Covid comes down, you will see us going in every direction. We were ready for it before Covid,” IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta revealed. “And we have so many markets within six, seven hours… Places like Beijing, Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi, Jakarta, Manila, and all the CIS countries in between them. I am giving the outer periphery, and this is a very attractive geography.”
The airline is capable of launching international flights from hubs like Delhi, Bombay, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata.
“We are very excited about it, and we are going to grow in a very, very aggressive manner,” Dutta said in a statement
India cancelled international flights in March last year, resuming limited services through Vande Bharat and bubble corridors. Although regular overseas flights were to resume in the summer but the second wave of the COVID pandemic put a stalk to the plan. Given the fact that the Delta variant is seen as a more infectious variant of the virus and fears of a possible third wave, restarting overseas flights appears to be a distant dream as of now.
Resumption completely depends on the behaviour of the virus and vaccination progress in India as well as other countries.
Indigo, the country’s largest carrier in terms of market share and number of seats, has been planning to expand overseas with its Airbus A320s and A321s, for quite sometime from now.
“IndiGo was 25% international and 75% domestic before Covid impacted travel and our plans had been that we will get to about close to 55-60% domestic and 35-40% international in five years,” Dutta revealed. “Now, how quickly we can get there again we will have to wait and see. But I would like to be at least 40% international in five years (from the day international flights resume).”
The IndiGo plan will further promote the Indian government’s plan to limit foreign flying rights. This had prevented foreign carriers from adding more flights, while giving the Indian airlines the capability to increase their overseas services.
IndiGo doesn’t have any plans to induct dual-aisle, wide-bodied planes such as the Airbus A350 or Boeing 787 Dreamliner or launch flights to further destinations in Europe and the Americas as of now.
“Airbus 321 XLRs start coming in year 2024 and beyond. And they are a very good airplane to go to places like Milan or Munich but not to London,” Dutta explained.
He revealed that the international expansion would take place in phases and the airline would gradually expand to destinations further out, avoiding the error of over-extending itself as others did. IndiGo’s strategy is to fly to high-traffic destinations and develop a market by creating demand through low-fare offerings, besides other incentives.
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