KLM CEO Pieter Elbers will lead Indian airline IndiGo from 1 October. He will replace departing CEO Ronojoy Dutta at India’s largest airline.
Elbers will step down from KLM on 1 July. He did not run for a third term with the airline. NS top woman Marjan Rintel will succeed him, it was announced at the beginning of this month.
In a statement, IndiGo points to Elbers’ extensive knowledge of the aviation sector and his leadership qualities. India is a very important growth market according to society. Elbers indicates that he is delighted to start working at IndiGo.
IndiGo claims to have a market share in India of more than 55 percent. The company is mainly active with domestic flights, but also flies internationally. The budget fighter’s fleet consists of almost 280 aircraft. IndiGo operates approximately 1500 flights daily.
Elbers worked at KLM for over thirty years
Elbers worked for KLM for over thirty years. He took the helm of the airline in 2014, having held various positions within KLM in the previous years. On January 13, the company announced that it would not start a new term as CEO.
“After consultation, the KLM Supervisory Board has said that I will not start a third term next year,” Elbers said at the time. In doing so, he implicitly indicated that this was not his own decision. He also indicated that he would not leave with ‘a big bag of money’.
Elbers was not always loved by parent company Air France-KLM. He would have regularly opposed plans that would limit KLM’s autonomy. This led to some controversy about his reappointment after the first term in 2019. At least 25,000 KLM employees signed a petition at the time in which they indicated that Elbers should be reappointed.