Despite being leader, we don't chase market share: Aditya Ghosh - Times of India

The author has posted comments on this articleSaurabh Sinha, TNN | Sep 26, 2013, 01.47AM IST

India's largest domestic airline IndiGo announced its fifth consecutive annual profit on Tuesday and its president Aditya Ghosh said the LCC would remain in black this financial year too. But, will this profitable airline be able to continue its dream run, considering impending war clouds in the sky in the form of soon-to-be-launched Tata-AirAsia budget airline; Tata-Singapore Airlines full service carrier and Jet-Etihad tie-up. Excerpts:

How are you preparing for the new airline launches over next few months?

Indian aviation market is way too large. The coming of new players will make no difference to us. We compete mainly with ourselves. We a re the youngest airline in India (just turned seven) and when we entered the market, there were many well entrenched players. Yet today we are here because of our single-minded and almost boring focus on on-time performance; reliable service; consistent low fares, standards of service and spic and span aircraft interiors.

But when big players like Tatas, Singapore Airlines, AirAsia and Etihad enter the Indian market, will things still remain the same for you?

Aircraft penetration in India is among the lowest in the world. Today we have 62 million to 65 million domestic flyers a year and this number will rise to 107 million by 2016. The market is massive. There will be room for good players always. It may sound ironical but despite being market leader, we don't chase market share. In fact that is the easiest thing. Our focus is to remain profitable a nd provide value to travellers.

Government is planning to relax norms for airlines to fly abroad. As someone who waited for five years to do so, what do you feel when newer players will not have to meet such conditions?

I hope we can deregulate international flying completely. If there are unutilized flying rights to some place and the airline which has them is not utilizing them, then others should be automatically allowed to operate there.

Have foreign airlines approached you for tie-ups, code shares or to invite you in a global alliance?

We are happy as we are (indicating that the airline is not looking for funds) and have no such plans right now. Our customers are happy, our employees are happy and with consistent profitability, the shareholders are happy too.

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