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even better shape in terms of its aircraft fleet by replacing its older 8%, though the airline expects it to stabilize at
generation aircraft with a newer and much more efficient fleet “So, about 15%-16%. There is some kind of growth
our goal is basically we should come out of this crisis with much in the SME sector and some of the industries
younger fleet, much more efficient fleet and not creating any over- like pharma, auto, infra, construction and other
capacity and that is what we are working on and this is a huge task, core sectors on the industry has started getting
which you can imagine that we have been very successful in getting back with about 25%-30% of the travel on the
older aircraft out,” says COO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer. IndiGo official purpose. However work related travel
plans to complete the return of 100 A320CEO family jetliners by for the IT and consulting sector is expected to
December 2022 as it continues to IndiGo is operating A320NEO return only from April onwards.
family aircraft.
IndiGo remains hopeful of capacity restric-
Aircraft utilization is critical for IndiGo as it seeks to return to prof- tions being eased by the Government for the
itability. Prior to the pandemic the LCC used to have a fleetwide fourth quarter fiscal year 2021, with a goal of
aircraft utilisation rate of 13 hours, which is now down to approxi- deploying about 75-80 percent of its fourth
mately 7-8 hours. IndiGo is striving to increase the aircraft utilisation quarter fiscal year 2020 capacity. The airline
rate to 10-11 hours as soon as possible. The airline now also has however, states that with the exception of air
more A321 NEOs in its fleet. “We are lucky and fortunate to have bubble flight arrangements and charters, the
the right fleet at our disposal. The ATR market, we are glad we low levels of international capacity continue to
have the ATRs, because many of these markets only work for remain a major concern and is hurting its finan-
ATRs, but equally we are delighted, we have the A321 because cials. “With the advent of the vaccine by major
where we need the volume. Especially as load factors improve, the players, we are hopeful that the restrictions
A321 will become even more valuable.” The new aircraft plans also on international travel will be lifted,” says CEO
provide IndiGo with a very big advantage on fuel economy as well Ronojoy Dutta The impact of COVID-19 travel
as on overall cost economics. IndiGo has been buoyed by demand restrictions can be observed from the fact the
for air travel at Tier-2 Indian cities such as Chandigarh, Srinagar, IndiGo operating at around 28 percent of its
Patna etc, where demand is way above pre-COVID levels. While International capacity year over year. “There
the airline says, that metro to metro capacity and volumes are are couple of key markets that were almost
hurting, many Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are generating exceptional going to open, but were held back because
passenger traffic and the airline needs to capacity on these routes of this UK mutation. Examples would be Saudi
with its ATRs and A320/321s. While the larger Indian Tier-2 cities Arabia, Sri Lanka. Government to Government
are not ATR markets, IndiGo has been adding ATR capacity on discussions were going on and we were on the
other smaller routes. For IndiGo, Business travel, pre-COVID was cusp of being allowed to fly there. Because of
about 22% of the LCC’s revenue and has now gone down to about this COVID UK issue, it has been held back, but

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