Over the last few days, leading up to the IATA AGM in Delhi, IndiGo has been making announcement after announcement with focus on expansion. I did not find a single consolidated list anywhere and thus decided to write one myself to understand what the airline is planning to do?
A few weeks ago IndiGo announced that it has signed up for two more 787-9 Dreamliners from Norse Atlantic on wet-lease. The new planes will join the fleet early next calendar year and would take the damp leased 787s to six, from the current one which is operating to Bangkok from Delhi and will soon shift to operate to Amsterdam and Manchester from Mumbai.
IndiGo had to abandon flying to Almaty and Tashkent, almost overnight as Pakistan closed its airspace for airlines from India and subsequently extended the closure by one more month, now scheduled until towards the end of June. There are primarily four things which are happening, domestic expansion, expansion in Asia, expansion in Europe and partnership in Europe for travel to points beyond those where IndiGo operates which also opens up another option for the airline to route passengers and hedge over its current partnership with Turkish Airlines which is facing a flak.
Domestic
- IndiGo has announced flights to Adampur from Mumbai. The flights will be effective July 02, 2025. The flights are already open for sale.
- The airline will also launch flights to Hindon, Ghaziabad on the outskirts of Delhi. Currently, rival Air India Express operates from Hindon and has been expanding operations from Hindon. The airport, operated by the Indian Air Force, was opened up only for RCS-UDAN flights but later saw commercial operations start as well.
- Navi Mumbai Airport – IndiGo and Adani Airports announced that IndiGo will be a launch operator at Navi Mumbai airport (IATA: NMI). It remains unclear on when the airport would open for commercial operations after multiple delays. IndiGo announced that it would operate 18 daily departures from NMIA to over 15 cities from day one. The airline intends to increase this to 79 daily departures including 14 international departures by November 2025 (Winter schedule) and over 100 daily departures by March 2026 (Summer schedule). The airline intends to scale up to 140 daily departures including 30 international departures by November 2026 (Winter 2026 schedule).
It remains to be seen how many of these are incremental flights and how many are merely shifting from CSMIA which has already announced the rebuilding of Terminal 1 which would reduce the movements to an extent.
- Noida International Airport, Jewar – The airline will be launching flights from Jewar, thus operating from all three airports in the NCR (National Capital Region). Jewar, like Navi Mumbai, is delayed and a start date is not yet known.
This will take IndiGo’s domestic destinations to 95.
International
IndiGo has been expanding rapidly on the international side on the other side of the . pandemic. The airline is launching flights to Amsterdam and Manchester next month. Beyond that the airline will launch flights to London and Copenhagen. Air India flies to both London and Copenhagen and Copenhagen is the hub for Scandinavian (SAS) which recently moved from Star Alliance to Skyteam. The airline is engaged with airport operators for slots. Norse Atlantic, whose planes IndiGo will deploy to London, operates to London Gatwick. Air India operates five times a week to Copenhagen from Delhi and to London Heathrow it operates 24 times a week from Delhi, 14 times a week from Mumbai and seven times a week from Bengaluru. It also operates to London Gatwick from Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Goa (Mopa).
XLR to Athens: IndiGo will deploy the A321XLR, which is likely to join the fleet between January and March 2026 to Athens. It remains unclear if Athens will be the first destination or if the airline will deploy it on some of its existing routes or adding routes to its existing destinations before flying to Athens. An answer to this would well depend on the speed of A321XLR deliveries from Airbus.
Central Asia: The airline has currently suspended operations to Almaty and Tashkent will connect these two destinations from Mumbai. Flights to Almaty are already on sale. Additionally, the airline will add four new destinations in the CIS. I would assume that the airline will wait for the Pakistani airspace to open. The airline has not specified which these four destinations are, but my measured guess is that it would fly to Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) , Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Astana (Kazakhstan) and Samarkand (Uzbekistan). Air Astana has operated between Astana and Delhi in the past, while its low cost subsidiary FlyArystan operated to Delhi from Shymkent but was short-lived.
While not part of Central Asia but a former Soviet Republic, Tbilisi (Georgia) will also see addition of flights with a new flight from Mumbai. Currently IndiGo operates to Tbilisi from Delhi and has continued operations even after the Pakistani air space closure.
Siem Reap, Cambodia: IndiGo will operate to Siem Reap this fiscal. Cambodia Angkor Air is the only airline flying between India and Cambodia right now and currently operates twice a week to Phnom Penh from Delhi. Siem Reap is the gateway to Angkor Wat.
Existing additions
- The airline intends to add capacity to Bali (Denpasar). Will the capacity be in the form of a new destination if the bilateral air service agreement allows or an upgrade in capacity with the Dreamliner deployer or a combination of both? The Delhi – Bali market is the largest between India and Bali, which also sees Air India being present, a route it inherited from Vistara’s merger.
- Vietnam – The airline was the first to start the India – Vietnam connectivity before the Vietnamese carriers barged in with force. IndiGo continues to have a small operation with Kolkata connected to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi with daily flights. Vietnamese carriers have expanded to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad amongst the metros and also making the most of open-skies to 18 destinations in India. Will IndiGo join the bandwagon for the largest markets – Delhi and Mumbai or look at Chennai to have monopoly on the route? Or does this new expansion become part of the big foray from Navi Mumbai?
The airline has said that it is looking for one more destination in the South East Asian region. Last year it started flights to some secondary destinations like Penang, Langkawi and Krabi. Will it be in Thailand (Chiang Mai?), Vietnam (Danang?) or will IndiGo enter the Philippines with flights to Manila?
Partnerships
IndiGo is getting into more partnerships as it builds the international network. On an immediate basis, its partnership with Japan Airlines will become reciprocal with IndIGo placing its code on Japan Airlines flights between points in Southeast Asia and Tokyo, helping passengers connect to Tokyo via (possibly) Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.
Additionally, the airline has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM and Delta to connect to 30 points beyond Amsterdam in Europe via KLM, to points in North America on Delta and KLM via Amsterdam, to North America via Manchester on Virgin Atlantic. With the connection efficiency being minimal with thrice a week operation, it will be a matter of time that IndiGo increases frequency to both Amsterdam and Manchester to six times a week, if not daily in due course. The issues of slots at Amsterdam could be tackled with help from KLM on a temporary basis, is how I would look at the situation.
Network Thoughts
IndiGo is moving to a multi hub network with Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru coming up strongly. Over a period of time, there will be major rejigs that I anticipate would happen to its schedule to ensure better connectivity. The airline already added flights to Bangkok and Phuket from Mumbai to ensure two way seamless connections. The only challenge that could come up would be bilateral rights, if Air India decides to be as aggressive on similar routes.
I would term the decade from 2026 to 2035 as “the decade of execution” for IndiGo when it would have to induct new types, replace all older ones, reach a phenomenal 600+ active fleet size and build multiple hubs which work like well oiled machines helping handle disruptions efficiently.
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