IndiGo, the airline lengthy celebrated for industrial-grade punctuality, is now confronting the very lapses it was engineered to keep away from. By December, its on-time efficiency sank to 19.7%, greater than 4,000 flights had been cancelled, and airport terminals had been full of stranded passengers. For an airline that after ran on stopwatch self-discipline, the breakdown has raised an unsettling query: has IndiGo drifted too removed from the system it was constructed upon?
That query inevitably leads again to the person who designed the system, Rakesh Gangwal, the co-founder who exited the corporate three years in the past and now watches the turbulence from 1000’s of miles away in the USA.
Following a public spat between Gangwal and the corporate’s co-founder, Rahul Bhatia, Gangwal merely resigned and introduced that he would change into a passive investor. This is able to be adopted by quiet block offers. By late 2025, his household belief is alleged to carry barely 5% of the corporate he had as soon as architected from the bottom up. His preliminary holding was properly over 30%.
From boardrooms in America to a clean sheet in India
Born in 1952 in Kolkata, he studied mechanical engineering at IIT Kanpur earlier than incomes an MBA from the Wharton College. His skilled life unfolded virtually solely within the United States, the place he rose to senior planning roles at United Airways, turned President and CEO of US Airways, and later led the journey expertise agency Worldspan as Chairman and CEO. By the point he turned his consideration to India, he had already run one of many world’s largest carriers.
In 2005, he partnered with Rahul Bhatia, the pinnacle of InterGlobe Enterprises. The distinction between the 2 males was stark. Bhatia was the native executor, politically linked, fluent in regulation and negotiation. Gangwal was the strategist, data-driven, and operationally inflexible.
His situation for becoming a member of was non-negotiable: the airline would observe a strictly low-cost, operationally ruthless mannequin. It will not try and emulate full-service carriers that had already begun to break down beneath debt. The airline’s solely true product, he believed, was time.
Not simply an airline
What emerged was not merely a funds airline however a monetary and operational engine.
Gangwal’s most consequential innovation was the sale-and-leaseback mannequin. IndiGo positioned huge bulk orders for plane, together with a landmark order of 100 Airbus A320s in 2005, securing deep producer reductions. On supply, the plane had been instantly bought to world lessors at greater market costs and leased again. The transaction typically generated money earnings on the primary day. IndiGo, not like its opponents, remained asset-light and debt-free from inception.
He imposed a six-year fleet cycle, returning plane earlier than costly heavy upkeep checks had been due. The end result was one of many youngest fleets in world aviation, fuel-efficient, dependable, and largely insulated from grounding dangers.
Standardisation turned the organising precept of every part else. For over a decade, IndiGo flew just one plane household. Any pilot might fly any airplane. Any engineer might repair any plane. Underneath Gangwal’s route, luxurious service was rejected, sizzling meals, and even fancy upholstery had been seen as distractions from the airline’s solely important promise to have predictable operations on the lowest attainable price.
By 2019, IndiGo managed greater than half of the home aviation market. Its opponents, burdened by debt, combined fleets, and costly service ambitions, steadily fell away.
The rupture
The breakdown didn’t start quietly.
In July 2019, when Indigo was flying sky excessive, Gangwal wrote to the Securities and Change Board of India alleging critical failures of company governance. The dispute centred on related-party transactions involving contracts awarded to firms linked to Bhatia with out aggressive bidding. In his most quoted line, he wrote that “Even a paan ki dukaan (paan store) follows some governance.”
In response to Bloomberg, Rakesh Gangwal accused Rahul Bhatia of exercising what he termed “uncommon controlling rights” that allowed him to dominate board selections and push by means of related-party transactions with out ample checks.
Bhatia, in flip, argued that Gangwal was trying to dilute the shareholder settlement that secured InterGlobe Enterprises’ management over the airline. Bloomberg reported that Bhatia accused his co-founder of in search of to undermine this construction, at the same time as Gangwal insisted he had no intention of taking management.
The general public conflict rattled buyers, wiping out practically $1 billion in market worth in a single session, and raised fears {that a} extended boardroom battle might distract IndiGo at a time when India’s aviation sector is beneath stress from rising gasoline prices and intense competitors.
How the corporate responded to Gangwal’s allegations
When the allegations unfolded, IndiGo’s administration pushed again firmly in opposition to Gangwal’s allegations, telling shareholders that related-party transactions had been each immaterial and compliant, based on an ET report.
As per the report, CEO Ronojoy Dutta stated such transactions totalled Rs 156 crore within the earlier fiscal, lower than 1% of IndiGo’s Rs 30,000 crore income, and had been all performed at arm’s size with audit committee oversight. He additionally denied the existence of any whistleblower grievance, countering Gangwal’s declare of governance lapses tied to dealings with InterGlobe Enterprises.
Although Gangwal didn’t attend the AGM, he voted in favour of all resolutions, together with amendments to the Articles of Affiliation after initially objecting that the brand new construction strengthened Rahul Bhatia’s management. Shareholders questioned the fallout from the dispute, with some calling the controversy “unlucky,” whereas Bhatia closed the assembly, saying the matter was settled and including, pointedly, that he hoped Gangwal would “stroll the discuss.”
As issues stand right this moment, Bhatia and his sons now oversee IndiGo’s operations by means of InterGlobe, with the promoter group firmly answerable for the airline’s route.
The silent exit
What adopted was one of the crucial methodical possession exits in Indian company historical past.
From 2022 to 2025, Gangwal bought down most of this 37% stake by means of institutional block offers, avoiding any abrupt market shock. There have been no public interviews or any commentary on the technique.
By late 2025, he had realised greater than $5 billion from his exit and successfully transitioned from promoter to minority investor.
In 2024, he joined the board of Southwest Airways in the USA. By late 2024, amid stress from activist buyers, he was elevated to Chairman of the Board. In 2025, he stepped down from the chairmanship however remained on the board, main the fleet oversight committee, returning to operational work.
Gangwal held 3.61 million Southwest shares, equal to a 0.7% stake, which made him the airline’s largest particular person insider shareholder, controlling 64% of all insider-held shares, as per the Telegraph. He was estimated to have made $4–$6 billion from promoting down his IndiGo stake and was nonetheless believed to carry round 5% of the airline, the report stated.
After the architect
IndiGo continued to develop quickly after his departure. By mid-2025, its fleet had expanded to greater than 430 plane. Progress, as soon as engineered cautiously beneath Gangwal, turned quicker and extra aggressive. In response to trade observers cited in a TOI report, the airline added plane with no proportionate growth of educated pilots, spare crews, or operational buffers that Gangwal had all the time insisted had been important.
As per the info given by DGCA, the pilot and co-pilot depend in FY21 was 3,734, whereas in FY20, it was 4,017. The pilot depend post-Gangwal was 4,407 for FY23 and 5,038 for FY24. In response to information by Statista, Indigo purchased a complete of 540 business jets from Boeing and Airbus in 2023 and 2024.
When regulatory modifications to pilot obligation norms and climate disruptions struck in December 2025, the system fractured. Over 4,000 flights had been cancelled, on-time efficiency hit a low, passengers had been stranded, and floor workers had their palms full.
A departure with out closure
Gangwal constructed India’s most worthwhile airline with out being a resident of the nation. He imposed a philosophy that rejected glamour in favour of arithmetic. He turned plane into liquid monetary devices. After which, when the governance construction not matched his rules, he selected to not battle publicly for management however to exit privately. As of right this moment, Gangwal’s internet price stands at $5.6 billion as per Forbes.
The airline nonetheless carries hundreds of thousands of passengers. The emblem nonetheless fills Indian skies. However the architect who as soon as enforced each invisible margin has already moved on with no intention of returning.
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