Fortune India Exclusive: Inside IndiGo’s strategy to become a global aviation giant

After dominating the Indian skies for several years, IndiGo—India’s largest airline—is charting a new path to gain a bigger share of international travellers flying in and out of the country.

“For way too long, international traffic for India has been outsourced to hubs outside the geographical shores of India. This is a good time for India to start building those hubs,” IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers tells Fortune India in an interview.

While IndiGo’s international journey began way back in 2011 with its first flights to the UAE, the airline will make its long-haul debut to Amsterdam and Manchester starting July 2025. The long-haul foray comes even as IndiGo awaits delivery of long-range Airbus A321 XLR and A350-900 aircraft.

“India is in a hurry and so is IndiGo,” Elbers says. The airline is accelerating international operations by taking damp leases for the Boeing 787-9 aircraft. In February, it signed a deal with Norse Atlantic Airways for damp lease of three Boeing 787-9 aircraft, which are set to arrive in India in the second half of 2025.

The Airbus A321 XLR aircraft, which are due to arrive during the current fiscal, will further expand IndiGo’s reach to destinations like Athens, Venice, and Seoul, among others, says Elbers.

All these moves are part of IndiGo’s game plan to become a global behemoth. When Elbers joined the airline about two and a half years ago, the company set in motion a strategy to transform IndiGo from a formidable domestic airline into a global aviation giant. The budget carrier’s entry into business travel with IndiGoStretch late last year was a step in that direction. “When we start to fly on long-haul international routes, we would want to have that product (IndiGoStretch) on the busiest domestic routes also,” says Elbers.

But the launch of business class on metro routes doesn’t mean that the airline is letting go of its deeply-rooted trait of cost-effectiveness. That’s the reason why IndiGo does not serve hot meals in the business cabin and doesn’t offer lounge benefits. “As a market leader, we want to be an airline for all business segments. But we want to do it in a way that is tailor-made for the Indian consumer. So you find our Stretch business products only in sectors where we feel it makes sense. The Delhi-Mumbai Stretch is going very well. It’s the busiest route in the nation. The others not yet,” says Elbers.

The CEO of the country’s biggest airline says IndiGo will continue to cater to the first-time flyers who want to trade up between a two-day train journey and a two-hour flight. “If the price is right, millions and millions of those travellers are waiting. That’s the foundation of who we are. We keep solidifying that foundation,” he states.

IndiGo currently offers 12 Stretch seats on a flight, while the remaining 208 seats are all economy. 45 aircraft equipped with IndiGoStretch will be inducted into IndiGo’s fleet by the end of this year.

Elbers says his biggest lesson from India is “go big or go home". “Whatever you do, you have to be able to do it at scale. Every week, a new plane with Stretch is coming in. That is very difficult for others to do. That scalability and the strength of IndiGo is that we can scale up very fast,” says Elbers.

When asked if the value-conscious Indian customer is ready for its business class, Elbers says as India is evolving and a new set of aspirational travellers are emerging, "given who we are in the market and where we are, it would be a missed opportunity not to address it".