IndiGo will start to take bookings this week for its new business-class service on 12 domestic routes, as it seeks to tap India’s burgeoning middle class and bolster its offerings against rival Air India. 

India’s largest airline, which up until recently was a purely low-cost carrier, unveiled its business class product, dubbed IndiGoStretch, at an event in Delhi on Monday. The premium seats will start from 18,000 rupees (US$215), chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said.

The airline’s expansion beyond the budget sector reflects the intensifying competition in India’s skies. Tata-owned Air India Ltd is currently merging with Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines Ltd, in an effort to to position itself as the full-service carrier of choice for the nation’s well heeled.

India is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. With a population of some 1.4 billion, air travel is still an experience that’s new for hundreds of millions of people.

IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, will be “double” its size today, by 2030, Elbers said at the event. “We will have widebodies to serve all these markets. We will have business class in domestic and maybe in the future, international, to fulfill the dreams of our aspirational travellers. And we [make] sure that we maintain our cost leadership,” he said.

Bookings for the carrier’s new business class product between Delhi and Mumbai will start on Tuesday, with flights starting in November and costing from 18,018 rupees. Business class cabins will be available on most routes between India’s major cities by the end of 2025, according to a statement from IndiGo.

The airline is also launching “BluChip”, its loyalty programme, by September. 

“IndiGo will be banking on converting some of its 60% domestic share into higher-yielding passengers in a market dominated by low-cost business,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Tim Bacchus and Eric Zhu wrote in a note.

IndiGo, which has a market share of around 60%, placed an order for 30 Airbus SE A350-900 jets in April, with the purchase rights for an additional 70, as it moves further into long-haul and international travel. Deliveries for the planes will start in 2027. 

The airline also plans to expand to over 40 international destinations by the end of the year, Elbers said at the event.

  - Bloomberg