Dr Vivek Bindra
Indigo is India's most successful and largest airline company, many companies like Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Deccan Airlines, Indian Airlines and Go First tried to establish themselves in India but all failed. In such a situation, Indigo not only survived but also remained continuously profitable. Motivational speaker Dr Vivek Bindra has talked about this Indigo Airlines in his new episode of "Tycoons of India". After the release of this episode, "Tycoons of India" was also seen trending on Twitter.
In this video, Dr Vivek Bindra has told the story of Indigo Airlines from beginning to success. The airline industry in India had a very bad time from 1991 to 2006. During this period, 14 private airline companies were shut down but Indigo entered this sector and spread all over India.
When the airline industry was sinking, they waved the flag of success
In 2005, Indigo's founders Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia were planning to enter the airline industry. Their biggest masterstroke was that before starting the company, they gave an order to a company named Airbus to make 100 aircrafts worth 6 billion dollars. No company had ever given such a big order before this.
It is said that they got a discount of 40 to 50% on this big order. One reason for this was that Rakesh Gangwal had previously worked with Airbus in America and the second reason was that Airbus wanted to establish itself in India. At that time, all airline companies used to buy planes from Boeing, so Airbus was not getting a chance.
Rakesh Gangwal's biggest masterstroke was not just ordering 100 aircrafts, but the real masterstroke was the conditions under which he bought these 100 planes. He told Airbus that they will have to fix all the technical problems that come in the aircrafts. When Airbus agreed to this, Rakesh Gangwal said that he does not want 100 planes at once, but he will take delivery of one plane every 45 days. He explained to Airbus that this will also save them from the pressure of making so many planes at once. In this way, Airbus delivered these 100 planes to Indigo from 2006 to 2012.
A big masterstroke played by selling planes worth 600 crores for 700 crores
In this way, Airbus got entry in India and Indigo, which did not have much money, also got a chance to gradually establish itself. There are still many layers of this masterstroke of Indigo. First, they bought a plane worth 800 crores for 600 by getting a discount and then convinced a company that used to rent aircrafts to buy the plane for 700 crores. This resulted in a profit of 100 crores on the purchase of each plane. Then they started Indigo Airlines by renting the same plane from the same company.
Even after starting the company, Indigo followed similar smart business strategies. Like, right from the beginning, they worked on low cost flight tickets by not giving too many royal facilities in the flight, due to which customers started traveling more than Indigo.
Hired 300 pilots of Kingfisher overnight and played a big gamble
In the year 2012, when Kingfisher Airlines was sinking, Indigo took a smart step. They hired about 300 pilots of Kingfisher immediately. This gave them trained and excellent pilots immediately and Indigo saved its own expenses. Even instead of having both men and women in the cabin crew of the flight, they kept only women. The reason behind this decision was that women weigh less than men, so the less weight there is in the flight, the less fuel will be spent. Apart from this, when the cabin crew has to stay in the hotel after reaching the destination, the women can be made to stay together.
The result of adopting these smart business strategies of Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia is that Indigo is the most successful airline company of India. Today Indigo's profit is eight thousand two hundred crores, which no Indian airline company has done before. Dr. Vivek Bindra narrates such case studies related to the world of business in his series "Tycoons of India". The new episode of which can be seen every week on Sunday at 8 am on his YouTube channel.
