The secret behind Indigo's success

Like a model in a beauty pageant, low-cost carrier IndiGo is obsessed with weight management. The light coat of paint it uses on its aircraft has reduced their weight by around 50 kg.
It has ordered seats which weigh just 12.8 kg, a new record in India. All its aircraft are cleaned and scrubbed thoroughly every day so that garbage or dust does not raise its weight.
Each of these functions may cut just a fraction of the flab of a 42-tonne aircraft. Taken together, the reduction is not insignificant. Just as a model cannot hope to win a pageant unless her body is in terrific trim, IndiGo has realised that it needs to cut the weight of its aircraft to keep its head above water.
A lighter aircraft means lesser fuel burnt during flights. Jet fuel accounts for 55-60 per cent of the cost of operations for IndiGo. Thus, IndiGo burns less cash than its rivals when its aircraft are flying in the skies. The closely-held airline does not disclose financial numbers. According to KPMG analyst Mark D Martin, a lighter aircraft can cut an airline's operating costs by as much as 10 per cent.
11/02/09 Surajeet Das Gupta & Anirban Chowdhury/Rediff.com

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Categories: Indigo Airlines Feb 2009