IndiGo takes bigger leap, hedges Turkish Airlines partnership; signs MoU with Delta, Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic

IndiGo, India’s largest carrier by fleet and domestic market share, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic, and Air France-KLM to build a partnership to connect traffic to Europe and North America. This comes amid the flak it recently received for its ties with Turkish Airlines and the subsequent approval by the DIrectorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for extension of damp lease of Turkish Airlines planes for only three months. 

Airline partnerships take months to materialise and years to build and it is unlikely that the recent flak led IndiGo to move in this direction. In fact, the airline has been a partner to Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic for the last few years and has been feeding their network out of India from multiple cities in India.

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The announcement came on a day when IndiGo signed an MoU with Airbus to convert 30 options for A350 to firm orders. The airline had placed an order for 30 A350s with options for 70 more in 2024. IndiGo has been in partnership with Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic since 2022, allowing Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic passengers to access more than 30 points in India. With announcements to fly to Manchester and Amsterdam, along with plans to fly to London and Copenhagen in due course of time, the airline will offer 30 points within Europe on KLM via Amsterdam, to the United States and Canada from Amsterdam with Delta and KLM and flights to the United States from Manchester on Virgin Atlantic. This opens up new opportunities for passengers from India to fly to Europe and North America via European hubs and possibly mimics the Jet Airways partnership with KLM, when it had a scissor hub at Amsterdam. Delta Air Lines plans to resume services to India with non-stop flights between Atlanta and Delhi in future. This will pave the way for IndiGo to offer passengers more options.

A European hub in the making?

IndiGo will start inducting its own A350s starting 2027. The current MoU translating to partnership could lead to IndiGo having a larger presence in Europe with opportunities to transfer passengers at multiple hubs, akin to what Jet Airways used to do in its heyday. At its peak, Jet Airways operated to Amsterdam from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru with its own flights onwards to North America along with a partnership with KLM.

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IndiGo has been expanding one step at a time, starting with flights in India’s vicinity, followed by longer destinations like Bali, Istanbul and Nairobi. This marks the third phase after which IndiGo may look at non-stops to North America. The new partnership will allow it to serve cities within Europe with non-stop flights and feed from Indian cities as well as South East Asia, and carrying passengers onwards to smaller cities in Europe and to North America.

More than passengers

The MoU signed by these airlines creates a framework for deeper collaboration between the carriers which could include network, loyalty, cargo, sales and more on the engineering side, where Air France-KLM have a large presence and also operate the A350s. This could come in handy for IndiGo’s A350 induction in 2027.

Win-Win?

Air India currently dominates the capacity (by Available Seat Kilometres) from India and leads the Star Alliance charge, supported by carriers like equity partner Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and others. Kingfisher Airlines was on the verge of joining OneWorld before it went down, while Jet Airways had strong partnerships with Skyteam but never formally joined the Alliance. With the partnership in Europe, IndiGo will offer passengers connections beyond Europe and help make a mark in the connecting market, along with helping find strengths for the newly launched flights to Europe.

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For Delta, Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic, it supports the transatlantic service and helps with a larger feed from India. With this partnership in place, the question of IndIGo launching operations to Paris becomes when and not if. Slots are often cited as the challenges for airlines in India to expand at airports like Amsterdam or London Heathrow and in this case, the solution could well come from lending or leasing or outright purchase (incase of London Heathrow) from the codeshare parnters and be part of the larger deal which may extend across areas.