Cost leadership
While the other airlines in the industry purchased rivals, flew different models of planes and tried to offer costly services, Indigo stuck to single model planes with a reputation of being a no frills airline. Indigo has stuck to operating the world’s largest selling single-aisle aircraft, the Airbus A320. This has helped the airlines to not just survive the economic slump in the industry but infact to post profits year-on-year end.
Capacity utilization of IndiGo airlines fleet
The utilization rate of IndiGo is around 16hours a day which is infact one of the highest in the industry. Thus even without using too many airplanes, the airlines can provide its ferrying service to a larger number of people. On an average its passenger loads have been around 90%.
High seating Capacity of aircrafts
Indigo operates a fleet of 62 aircraft and has been expanding its fleet rapidly. Even though the number of aircrafts are lesser than some other airlines, it offers higher seating capacity as most of its aircrafts are 180 seaters rather than the standard 60 – 70 seater aircrafts of most airlines. Indigo’s fleet is approximately 6.5% of India’s combined fleet but it serves a market share 27%.
Young fleet of aircrafts
One of the strengths of Indigo Airlines is its fuel efficient young fleet of aircrafts as compared to other airlines. A young fleet of aircrafts has ensured increased service levels, high operational efficiency and low maintenance costs. Indigo recently bought 100 new A-320 jets from Airbus. Such volume purchases have helped Indigo in cutting its cost by availing volume discounts.
Superior technology
The consistent use of superior technology has helped Indigo achieve its USP of on-time performance. By making use of technologies such as ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing And Reporting System), an automatic message is triggered from the aircraft to control centre and the departure time recorded immediately.