New Delhi: Fast-growing IndiGo, India's largest airline, will begin its first U.S. codeshares.
IndiGo will partner with Delta and KLM on U.S. and Canada codeshares from Amsterdam and with Virgin Atlantic for U.S. codeshares from Manchester, England.
For now, the partnerships are limited, but they potentially could be an early step toward deeper integration between IndiGo and the transatlantic joint venture alliance of Delta, Virgin Atlantic and Air France-KLM. CEOs from all three companies joined IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers at a press conference Sunday at IATA's Annual General Meeting to announce the partnership.
"We believe that the opportunity of this is just immense," Elbers said.
IndiGo already codeshares with Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic on 30-plus domestic routes in India. And along with transatlantic codeshares, IndiGo announced Sunday that it will begin codesharing with KLM on flights from Amsterdam to 30 destinations in Europe.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said that Delta isn't currently working on a deeper integration with IndiGo, but he didn't rule out a joint venture down the road. "You could envision a world when that takes place," he said.
Bastian added that Delta plans to return to India in the next couple years. The airline last flew to India briefly in early 2020, only to see its new route between New York JFK and Mumbai upended by the Covid-19 pandemic.
IndiGo, said Elbers, plans to launch India-U.S. service eventually, but the timeline won't be determined until after the airline begins taking delivery of its own widebody aircraft in 2027.
