Rahul Bhatia picked as Entrepreneur of the Year

When two virtually unknown businessmen set up an airline and gave Airbus its single largest order for 100 aircraft, sceptics had a field day. After all, in an industry in which Naresh Goyal's Jet Airways ruled the skies and the flamboyant Vijay Mallya had debuted, few expected an airline with unfamiliar pedigree to take off. But IndiGo did take off, and in style, thanks to the efforts of its low-profile promoters Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangawal, a non-resident Indian based in the US.
Bhatia, the hands-on founder, is a travel industry veteran of sorts. He is the managing director of InterGlobe Enterprises, a multi-billion dollar enterprise that has evolved from a humble travel start-up founded by his father Kapil Bhatia in 1964.
So what has Bhatia achieved to be ET's Entrepreneur of the Year? Well, for starters, he has founded a business that has redefined the term 'budget airline' for the Indian market by offering a low-cost product that essentially does not mean low quality. Indi-Go gives the huge untapped mid-segment market of travellers an airline they can fly in with a reasonable budget, with the efficiency and on-time precision that its fullservice counterparts find tough to match.
And yes, the airline that reaffirmed last year in a chic ad campaign that 'being on time is good' also makes money - an extraordinary feat in an industry dotted with bruised bottom lines and sack loads of debt.
05/10/11 Economic Times

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Categories: Indigo Airlines Oct 2011