IndiGo, India’s largest carrier, has rolled out a refreshed in-flight pre-book menu as part of a revamped food and beverage programme. The refresh comes with a new identity and new packaging, and the branding has already been visible on board since November 01. The airline calls it an evolving menu that mixes familiar favourites with new items inspired by local and global flavours and comes on the heels of Akasa Air refreshing its menu recently.
The new pre-book additions, available on select routes and cabins, borrow from kitchens and streets across India and beyond. There is a Veg Coronation Sandwich with a mildly curried, sweet-and-savoury filling, and a Tangra Style Chilli Paneer Roll that nods to Kolkata’s Indo-Chinese food. The Egg Roast Roll is a South Indian take on the kathi roll, while the Fort Kochi Roast Chicken Sandwich brings subtle coastal flavours. Jain, vegan, diabetic and low-calorie options continue as special categories. For those buying on board, there are ready-to-eat meals and a rotating ‘Snack of the Day’, which includes Butter Toffee Popcorn, Hand Murukku and Edamame Beans on select flights. The beverage list has Hot Chocolate, Calming Blue Tea and Coco-Litchi. In line with what airlines did post pandemic, perishables continue to be pre-booking only while items with longer shelf life are available for Buy-on-Board service.
One thing has not changed. Tea, coffee and other drinks are still not sold as a standalone item; a beverage comes only as part of a package. For the flyer who simply wants a cup of chai, the refresh does not offer anything new.
The Chicken Junglee stays
After the initial confusion, Chicken Junglee known more popularly by its code CJSW continues to be part of the menu for pre-booking. Few airline products in India have the recall that this sandwich does. Frequent flyers order it by name, crew know it as the popular non-veg pick, and it has become shorthand for the IndiGo experience itself. It survived the pause in meal services during COVID, it returned as one of the first items when pre-booking resumed, and it was retained as an ‘IndiGo Classic’ in the 2023 refresh.
When IndiGo started flying in 2006, food was a simple buy-on-board affair. A limited set of snacks and beverages was sold from the trolley, in line with a low-cost model where nothing beyond the seat was bundled into the fare. Over the years, the offering grew under the 6E Eats banner, with hot snacks, instant meals and the sandwiches that built a loyal following. COVID broke that rhythm. Onboard meal services were suspended in 2020, and when regulators allowed food to return, it came back only in a packaged, pre-booked format. Every snack was paired with a beverage, hot drinks were off, the menu shrank to a few old hits, and the impulse purchase of fresh items from the trolley disappeared.
The last full refresh came in 2023, as travel recovered after the pandemic. The new 6E Eats menu debuted on September 1, 2023 across domestic and international flights, with a stated focus on affordability, service efficiency and lower wastage. It introduced #IndiabyIndiGo regional favourites for pre-booking while keeping the classics, including the Chicken Junglee Sandwich and the ‘Choice of the Day’.
In 2024, the launch of IndiGoStretch added a business class product, with a vegetarian-only selection up front and the option to add meals while booking. The latest refresh, three years after the post-COVID reset, goes beyond the menu card and gives the food programme a new identity and packaging.
Lucky draw?
IndiGo has so far been known for standardisation and relied on predictibility as its USP. The Chef’s choice and Local hits takes away the predictability and moves towards a lucky draw sort of mode which could change by flight, timing and route. However, Rolls and sandwiches are quick to serve, easy to eat in a narrow seat, and leave little mess behind. On a network built around short sectors and tight turnarounds, a crew that spends less time in the aisle and a cabin that needs less cleaning feed directly into on-time performance. The menu is shaped as much by the turnaround as by the taste buds.
The regional storytelling, from Tangra to Fort Kochi, is a familiar play in Indian aviation. Air India Express has built its Gourmair menu around local flavours, and Akasa Air has done the same with Café Akasa. IndiGo is not reinventing the format here; it is closing the gap while keeping the price point and process that suit a high-frequency operation.
Network Thoughts
IndiGo was ready with the big bang branding in its inflight magazine as well as meals right on the day of the change, which speaks volumes of work having gone into this since this involves nearly 400 aircraft flying across 2000 flights a day. ood is a small line in an airline’s P&L, but a large one in how passengers remember a flight. For a low-cost carrier, it is also one of the few ancillaries a passenger buys with a smile. IndiGo’s refresh gets the fundamentals right: a menu built for pre-booking, quick service and clean cabins, wrapped in a new identity that finally gives the programme a face of its own. The decision to keep the Chicken Junglee Sandwich untouched shows a discipline that many brands lack. New items can be trialled on select routes, and the ones that do not sell can quietly go. The anchor product stays, so the regular flyer always has a safe pick while the menu experiments around it. That is good menu engineering and good brand management in one move.
What would make this complete is a standalone tea or coffee. It is the easiest add-on to sell, it costs little to serve, and it is the one thing an early morning passenger is most likely to ask for. Until then, the package model could keep some wallets closed. For now, the menu has new stories to tell, and the CJSW is still there for those who know exactly what they want.
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