Two executives at top Asia budget airline quit in two days

IndiGo’s Chief Commercial Officer Willy Boulter said he will leave the company in four months, just a day after the biggest budget airline in Asia said its finance chief resigned with immediate effect. 

“That’s a sort of personal decision,” Boulter said in an interview to Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “I’ve been in the airline business a long time. I’m 64, and it’s time to maybe take not a full-time role.” 

The top management churn at IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., comes after billionaire co-founder Rahul Bhatia was appointed in a newly-created executive role of managing director in February. Fellow co-founder Rakesh Gangwal also later stepped down from the airline’s board in February, and announced his plan to slowly cut stake over more than five years, ending a years-long feud with Bhatia.

On Wednesday, IndiGo said finance chief Jiten Chopra resigned effective immediately, and it named General Electric Co. veteran Gaurav Negi as a replacement.  

CCO Boulter, who previously worked with Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., joined IndiGo in 2018. He headed Russia’s first low-cost carrier Sky Express and worked with Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., South African Airways and Etihad Airways.

IndiGo is “very encouraged” by the resumption of international flights from India, and plans to return to the 25 overseas destinations it was flying to before the pandemic while adding some more routes, Boutler said. Wide-body aircraft are not on IndiGo’s agenda currently as it will start to get take deliveries of Airbus SE’s extended long-range A321XLR jets from 2024, enabling it to fly further, he said.

Fuel prices make up over 40% of IndiGo’s input costs, Boulter said, adding the carrier is working with the government to straighten air routes and training pilots for certain techniques that save fuel. There will be more rational pricing and competition in the “intensely competitive” Indian aviation market after formerly state-run Air India Ltd. was sold to conglomerate Tata Group, Boulter said.

IndiGo shares were 0.9% up at 2,006.80 rupees as of 10:24 a.m. in Mumbai, giving it a market value of $10.2 billion. The Bloomberg World Airline index was down 0.42%.