There must be a “level-playing field” between Indian and European carriers allowing reciprocal market access, says IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers as his airline makes an entry into Europe and aims to grow its long-haul network amid tight slot availability at major hubs such as those in Amsterdam and London.
“If KLM in Netherlands is flying 28 flights a week into India because of the [size of] the Indian market, and on the other hand the Indian operators such as Air India only get like seven flights, and [there is] nothing or just a handful of slots for IndiGo at Amsterdam’s Schipol, then there should be some balance,” Pieter Elbers told The Hindu as IndiGo launched its third European destination this year with the launch of flights to Copenhagen on October 8, months after launching flights to Amsterdam and Manchester. It will also fly daily to London Heathrow from later this month.
“For a long time, a lot of the international travel from India was going through hubs outside the geographical scope of India. I’m a strong believer that India deserves and should have airlines of the size and potential that matches the size and the potential of the national, and a network is part of that,” Mr. Elbers said assertively.
The imbalance was further widened because European carriers could operate to several Indian airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, whereas the smaller size of their markets made it commercially feasible for Indian airlines to serve only one major airport in those countries, the CEO claimed.
“I am not saying they should be restricted, but Indian operators should have at least a fair and balanced playing field because India is the market,” Mr. Elbers said about India’s major international airlines’ attraction towards India as the world’s fastest growing aviation market.
“It is difficult to understand [the argument] that since Europeans have been flying from a long time, so they have all the slots. That is not the way it should work,” he referred to the common practice of grandfathering of historic slots, which allows an airline to keep using their airport slots if they have been able to operate 80% of their scheduled flights instead of returning them to a pool for reallocation for various airlines, that makes it harder for new entrants to access these markets.
Some of the most slot-constrained airports in Europe include major hubs such as London Heathrow, Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Frankfurt, and Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris which regularly experience demand exceeding their available runway and passenger terminal capacity. The availability of slots is aggravated as several European airports have curtailed night flights to curb noise pollution.
IndiGo bagged five flights to Amsterdam from Mumbai for the winter season by swapping airport slots with Dutch carrier KLM with which it has a codeshare partnership. Air India too enhanced its London Heathrow flights from thrice to four daily flights by leasing slots from Lebanon’s Middle Eastern Airlines.
(The reporter is in Copenhagen on the invitation of IndiGo)
Published – October 11, 2025 10:38 pm IST
