Major: IndiGo Partners With Delta, Air France-KLM, Virgin Atlantic

The IATA AGM has just kicked off in Delhi (so you can expect lots of interesting quotes from airline executives in the coming days). To kick off the event, a new partnership has been announced.

IndiGo partners with SkyTeam transatlantic joint venture airlines

IndiGo, Delta, Air France-KLM, and Virgin Atlantic, have announced plans to build a partnership connecting India with Europe and North America, with ambitions to grow to a global scale. There a few important things to understand, for context:

• Delta, Air France-KLM, and Virgin Atlantic, already all partner closely, belong to the same transatlantic joint venture, and Delta even owns a stake in Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic
• IndiGo is India’s largest airline, and while the airline has historically been focused on domestic and regional flying, it’s now starting to get into long haul markets
• IndiGo already has partnerships with Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic, so what’s new here is the Delta partnership, plus the overall group aspect of this, of creating a cohesive strategy across airlines

Here’s how the premise of the partnership is described:

“India, one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, is at the heart of this collaboration. By linking IndiGo’s extensive domestic network with Delta’s strength in North America and the transatlantic, the extensive reach of Air France-KLM in Europe and North America, and the U.K. and transatlantic presence of Virgin Atlantic, the partnership is poised to offer travelers broader access, smoother journeys, and a more consistent experience across continents. Linking dozens of cities in the United States, Canada, Europe and India, the airlines aim to meet rising demand for international travel while setting new standards for connectivity and cooperation in global aviation.”

With IndiGo soon launching flights to Europe using leased Norse Atlantic Boeing 787s (before eventually taking delivery of its own Airbus A350s), the airline sees more value in global collaborations. Once commercial contracts are signed and regulatory procedures are completed, IndiGo will be allowed to sell partner flights under its own 6E marketing codes.

This will allow IndiGo customers to book onward travel on select flights operated by international partners, making it easier to reach destinations across Europe and North America. These include:

• KLM flights from Amsterdam to 30 points within Europe
• Delta and KLM flights from Amsterdam to the United States and Canada
• Virgin Atlantic flights from Manchester to the United States

Delta also eventually plans to launch Atlanta to Delhi flights, but I’ll talk more about that in a separate post. What’s being announced for now is only the beginning.

This partnership is also supposed to create a framework for deeper collaboration between the carriers on a bilateral and multilateral basis, with more commercial collaboration, including network, loyalty, cargo, and sales. The airlines will also purpose areas of non-commercial cooperation, including aircraft maintenance, sustainability, training, and ground handling.

There’s a lot of merit to this global partnership

India is obviously a hugely important airline market, with a ton of growth. Historically, you’d think that United and Air India would’ve had the biggest advantage. Air India is India’s most global airline, while United is the US airline with the most service to India, and both airlines belong to Star Alliance.

Despite that, the two airlines really haven’t done much to cooperate. They certainly haven’t had a joint venture, and United has historically almost avoided putting its passengers on Air India. Now, in fairness, that’s probably because of the quality of Air India’s product. Back in the day, United would sometimes partner more closely with Vistara than Air India (before the two airlines were merged).

The issue is, Air India was India’s only global airline. Airlines could establish partnerships with IndiGo, but IndiGo didn’t fly long haul, and didn’t have a premium cabin. Both of those things are now changing, making a partnership much more valuable.

There’s something to be said for the cohesive approach that Delta, Air France-KLM, and Virgin Atlantic, are taking. The airlines collaborate on their transatlantic strategy, and India is very much a part of that, given how much US to India traffic routes through Europe.

It’s worth noting that American has been partnering with IndiGo since 2022, including a codeshare agreement. There’s likely nothing precluding IndiGo from partnering with multiple airlines. I suspect this new partnership will overtake the American partnership in terms of importance, given American’s lack of ability to execute any sort of strategy.

Only time will tell how this evolves, as IndiGo becomes increasingly global. I think it’ll be several years before this partnership matures, though I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the most significant global partnership in India (which… isn’t necessarily saying a whole lot).

If there’s one thing Delta is good at, it’s fostering very close partnerships, typically with some sort of equity stake. While that’s not in the cards for now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that in the future.

Bottom line

IndiGo has announced plans to form a strategic partnership with Delta, Air France-KLM, and Virgin Atlantic. This is probably the most significant global partnership we’ve seen in India to date. I wouldn’t expect this to be a game changer for now, but it’s useful to have this framework in place before IndiGo starts its major global growth strategy, since I think this will impact where the airline flies.

What do you make of this new IndiGo partnership strategy?