Indian travel demand to prop up Thai aviation
Pieter Elbers, chief executive of IndiGo, said that whenever new destinations in Southeast Asia were introduced or the capacity of those routes increased, IndiGo always saw strong travel demand.
He said the unique geography of India provides a good opportunity for the airline to operate flights of 4-5 hours with good products and offerings to the region.
India is currently the fifth-largest outbound market globally, and is also poised to become the world's third-largest economy by 2027.
Its young population and growing middle class would help to reinforce the aviation industry.
Indigo has become the world's largest client for aircraft, having placed an order for 500 single-aisle planes from the Airbus A320 family in 2023.
Mr Elbers said there are still untapped opportunities on international routes, as India only has a rate of 0.06 international seats per capita, almost half the rate for China, which has a rate of 0.11 international seats per capita.
He said IndiGo has been expanding in the Southeast Asian region, including in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.
In 2024, it began operating the IndiGoStretch business class on major domestic routes in India, such as from Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Last month, it started rolling out the new class to other regional routes from Delhi and Mumbai to Bangkok, Singapore, Phuket and Dubai.
Mr Elbers said demand from both Indian and Thai passengers for flights between Bangkok and Indian cities is roughly the same. However, on the airline's latest route to Krabi, the carrier is attracting mostly Indian tourists.
The airline uses 787-9 Dreamliners on the Delhi-Bangkok route. This type of aircraft is among several wide-body aircraft it operates under a damp lease agreement with Norse Atlantic.
At the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) annual general summit in Delhi last month, IndiGo announced an additional firm order of 30 wide-body A350-900s, on top of an existing 30 firm orders.
At present, IndiGo operates domestic flights across 91 cities with 500 routes in India, securing the largest market share in the country, as well as 41 international destinations.
It aims to expand to 95 domestic destinations and 51 international destinations by next year.
Its current available seat kilometres (ASK) on international routes is close to 30% and the airline aims to increase the rate to 40% by 2030.
The airline carried over 118 million passengers during the fiscal year that ended in March 2025. The number is expected to double by 2030, Mr Elbers said.
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