INDIGO UPBEAT ON WINNING BIGGER MART SHARE
India airline aims to provide courteous, on-time, hassle-free service with low fares
INDIA’S largest low-cost carrier IndiGo is confident of securing a large portion of the low-cost travel market in Malaysia, despite highly intense competition from existing airlines.
IndiGo chief commercial officer William Boulter said the airline welcomed competition and was not worried about the strong presence of low-cost carrier AirAsia Bhd.
He said Malaysia is no stranger to the fast-growing low- cost travel market and the airline can do its best to support Malaysia and cultural business tourism.
“Given our success from the 43 per cent dominance in the domestic Indian market, we have successfully applied the model to other international markets such as the Gulf region.
“We believe in providing courteous, hassle-free, on time service with low fares,” he told NST Business after welcoming IndiGo’s inaugural flight to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at its second terminal, Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2), here, yesterday.
With the maiden flight, which carried 180 passengers onboard Airbus A320 from Delhi, India, IndiGo has become is the 59th airlines to operate at KLIA.
KLIA, meanwhile, is IndiGo’s 12th international destination.
Boulter said IndiGo aims to operate its introductory flights with an 80 per cent load factor.
“We have achieved this range historically and we would like to stimulate demand. If load does not pick up quickly, we will offer cheap prices to attract passengers,” he said.
Although India and Malaysia are different in size and population, Boulter said the countries share common traits in terms of multi-cultural communities.
“We can significantly connect to the cultural and tourism business between the two countries. We work to serve that market where there would be a mix of business, leisure, family and religious passenger traffic growth,” he said.
Boulter said IndiGo would plan to increase flight frequencies and introduce more destinations to Malaysia starting next year, banking on its strong presence in the Indian market and potential Indian tourists as well as a fleet of about 200 planes.
“We had strong orders for 430 A320neo family last year. We will take our first A321 by end of this month.
“We are confident there will be more destinations and frequencies to be introduced in Malaysia,” he said.