IndiGo, built with borrowed planes- how it conquered the skies
IndiGo on Wednesday became the world's most valuable airline in terms of market capitalization. IndiGo achieved this position by beating America's Delta Airlines. During trading, IndiGo's stock reached a 52-week top. With this, compney market cap reached Rs 2.01 lakh crore i.e. around $23.24 billion and it surpassed Delta Airlines ($23.18 billion). But it held this title for about an hour.
The company's stock closed at Rs 5,189.40 on the BSE with a gain of 0.68% and the market cap remained at $23.16 billion. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Delta Airlines' shares rose 23.38% and its market cap reached $28.60 billion.
IndiGo, built with borrowed planes
This achievement of Indigo is also important because its commercial launch took place in August 2006, whereas Delta Airlines has been in existence since 1929. Just 6 years ago, Indigo's market value was just $7.72 billion while Delta's market cap was $36.67 billion.
Indigo operates 15,768 flights every week while Delta's weekly flights are 35,144. At the end of 2024, Indigo had 437 aircraft.
How it conquered the skies
In June 2023, Indigo ordered 500 aircraft from Airbus, which is the largest order in aviation history. The company is to get about 1000 aircraft in the next decade. Right now, the aviation industry in India is growing rapidly. With Air India's return to the Tata Group, Indigo may face a tough challenge from it.
A look at Indigo's journey so far...
How it was started
Indigo was started in the year 2006 by Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal. While now it is one of the largest airlines in the country. Its share in the Indian market is about 64 percent. Rahul Bhatia is from Delhi while his friend Rakesh Gangwal lives in America. Gangwal had worked in many big airline companies and had a good knowledge of this sector.
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Though Bhatia had proposed to Gangwal to start an airline. In this way, IndiGo's parent company InterGlobe Aviation was started in 2004. Even though at that time the aviation sector was facing huge losses. Despite this, both of them decided to enter this sector.
Now it is one of the largest airlines in the country
They also got the license to start an airline in the year 2004. But the company could not start its services till 2006 because it did not have planes. Gangwal, due to his contacts, got 100 planes on loan from Airbus. Finally, the company started its flight from 4 August 2006.
When IndiGo started its journey, the aviation industry was going through a difficult phase.
The company connected the major cities of the country by air and fulfilled the dream of providing air travel to people at a low cost. It was through IndiGo that the dream of people wearing slippers to sit in a plane was also fulfilled. Traveling by plane was only a dream for a middle-class family. IndiGo fulfilled this dream of theirs.
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Sourness in relations
Meanwhile, a dispute arose between Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia in 2020. Gangwal had demanded a change in the rules of the company's Articles of Association and resigned from the company's board in February 2022. Gangwal's family is trying to sell some of its stake in the company. Gangwal now has a 5.31 percent stake in InterGlobe Aviation. Along with this, his trust Chinkerpoo Family Trust also has an 8.24 percent stake in the company.
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