Mumbai: IndiGo plans to significantly expand its international reach and enhance its cargo operations in the coming years as part of a broader strategy to position India's largest airline as a leading global airline by 2030, chief executive Pieter Elbers said.

Speaking exclusively to media, Elbers said the airline plans to grow its international destinations to 40 from 20 by the end of the current financial year through March 2025, targeting emerging markets that are not yet well-travelled by Indian passengers.

To a query on whether the airline will be going for wide-body planes and also introducing new classes, Elbers said, “we keep all options open and we evaluate, we take decisions for IndiGo that are matching the needs of the market and IndiGo at the appropriate time”.

Further, he highlighted that A321 XLR aircraft, that are expected to come into its fleet “somewhere in 2025”, will help the airline in further expanding its range.

“XLRs will bring us to parts of Europe, Asia and places like Athens, Seoul, Rome… that will be a wonderful expansion of IndiGo,” he added.

The airline has more than 900 planes on order.

At present, IndiGo has codeshares with Turkish Airways, British Airways, Qatar Airways, American Airline, KLM-AirFrance, Qantas, Jetstar, and Virgin Atlantic.

Codesharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless travel to various destinations.

“Clearly, going forward, we will be seeing a number of new international destinations. We will have some domestic but more international… I would say. Especially, the opportunity to have more international routes, not per se destinations only,” he said and cited the example of services to Singapore that have been increased.

About a year ago, he said that IndiGo was flying to Singapore from three destinations and today, it operates to that country from seven destinations in India. “I think we have a good opportunity to not only add destinations but even more… adding more routes to our network”.

-B