IndiGo

IndiGo was founded in 2006 by Rahul Bhatia — a travel industry entrepreneur — and Rakesh Gangwal, a former CEO of US Airways. The two founders had studied the Southwest Airlines model and concluded it could be applied to India's domestic aviation market, which was rapidly growing but dominated by full-service carriers that most middle-class Indians found expensive. IndiGo's founding philosophy was simple and radical: operate only Airbus A320 family aircraft, maintain an obsessive focus on on-time performance, charge no frills and no surprises, and keep costs lower than any competitor. The airline launched its first flight in August 2006.

IndiGo achieved operating costs significantly below competitors by fleet uniformity (only A320 family aircraft), highly efficient ground operations, and a sale-leaseback financial strategy that kept capital requirements minimal. The airline sold aircraft to leasing companies and leased them back, monetising the residual value while maintaining operational control. This strategy, combined with IndiGo's fuel efficiency from operating new rather than old aircraft, gave it a structural cost advantage that Air India, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, and SpiceJet could not match while also maintaining older mixed fleets.

IndiGo placed an order for 250 Airbus A320neo aircraft at the Paris Air Show in 2015 — at the time the largest single aircraft order in aviation history. The order was followed in 2023 by an order for 500 additional Airbus A320 family aircraft — again breaking the record for the largest single aircraft order ever placed. The orders reflected IndiGo's confidence in India's aviation growth trajectory: a middle class of hundreds of millions of people, a government with a flagship UDAN scheme subsidising regional connectivity, and an infrastructure pipeline of new airports being built across the country.

The collapse of Jet Airways in April 2019 — which had been India's second-largest airline — transferred enormous market share to IndiGo. The airline's domestic market share crossed 50% and eventually stabilised above 60%, a level of dominance that has no parallel among major airline markets globally. No US, European, or other Asian aviation market has a single carrier holding 60%+ domestic share. IndiGo's reliability and punctuality — consistently the highest of any major Indian carrier — made it the default choice for both leisure and corporate travellers.

IndiGo's market capitalisation reached approximately $20.5 billion, making it one of Asia's most valuable airlines. The airline carried over 100 million passengers in fiscal year 2024, a milestone no Indian carrier had previously achieved. International routes — to destinations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe — were growing rapidly as IndiGo expanded beyond its domestic stronghold. India's aviation market was projected to become the world's third-largest by 2030, and IndiGo was positioned to capture the majority of that growth with a fleet order backlog stretching into the 2030s.