IndiGo says overseas expansion via Istanbul on B777s receiving healthy response

Indigo

New Delhi: After maintaining its dominant domestic market share, IndiGo plans to expand further on overseas routes via Istanbul serviced by the wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft, a senior company executive said.

The airline’s Global Sales Head Vinay Malhotra said IndiGo will start by offering flights to three destinations in Spain – Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia -- via Istanbul.

“This partnership for code-share with Turkish Airlines will go not only to Europe, but even beyond in the time to come,” he told MoneyControl.

At present, IndiGo offers flights to 27 European destinations via Istanbul. Onward flights from Turkey are operated by IndiGo’s code-share partner Turkish Airlines.

On a technical basis, a code-share agreement allows two airlines to sell seats on each others' flights in order to provide passengers with a wider choice of destinations.

Notably, the airline has for the first time wet-leased Boeing 777 aircraft from Turkish Airlines to service routes between India and Istanbul.

Besides, IndiGo operates direct flights from India to 26 international destinations.

The current code-share agreement between IndiGo and Turkish Airlines enables passengers of both the carriers to fly to various destinations in India, Turkey and beyond.

“In fact, we are even going to add more points in the very near future, including direct flights to Nairobi in Kenya and Jakarta in Indonesia. As we get more and more aircraft, more and more points will continue to be added.”

Video Link of the MoneyControl interview:

Route strategy

He said the airline was also looking at servicing routes between India and various markets in Central Asia.

According to Malhotra, the airline operates about 1,800 flights on a daily basis.

“Out of these, approximately 10 percent accounts for international flights.”

Currently, IndiGo operates direct flights to 26 international and 78 domestic destinations.

Malhotra added: “For short-haul flights, we already are flying to the Indian subcontinent and various other countries.”

“For the medium-haul, we are adding more and more points to Europe, courtesy our code-share partnership with Turkish Airlines.”

“As far as the long-haul strategy goes, it's quite clear and evident from our code-share partnership.”

Healthy response

Presently, the airline has seven code-share partnerships, with Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Qantas, Air France, KLM, American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.

Talking about increasing competition, he cited the fact that less than 100 million people in India have a passport.

“As and when more and more people get passports issued, they would want to travel to overseas destinations. So there is enough room for everyone to grow in this market.”

In addition, Malhotra said the Boeing 777s have received a healthy passenger response.

“This is a large aircraft, 372 seats in economy, which is what we're filling up, and we have been observing good loads in the past couple of weeks.”

IndiGo has wet-leased two Boeing 777s for a fixed period of time. The airline is understood to have received regulatory clearance to wet-lease more aircraft.

Until now, the airline has been operating flights on a fleet of 300 Airbus A320Neos and ATR aircraft. It is awaiting the deliveries of another 499 aircraft which were ordered earlier, including A321XLRs.