IndiGo Appoints Ronojoy Dutta As CEO
IndiGo appoints Ronojoy Dutta as CEO for five years.
Aviation veteran Ronojoy Dutta has been appointed as chief executive officer of IndiGo for five years as it plans a major international expansion this year, the low-cost airline said.
M Damodaran, former Chairman of the Securities Exchange Board of India, has been appointed as chairman of the IndiGo’s board of directors, it said.
Dutta would be taking charge as CEO from the company’s co-founder and interim CEO Rahul Bhatia.
Dutta was the president of United Airlines, where he worked for nearly 20 years, holding various senior leadership positions, including senior vice president of planning, senior vice president of maintenance, vice president of finance and vice president of information technology.
Dutta also served as the president of Air Sahara for two years. He was also an adviser to the restructuring of both Air Canada and U.S. Airways.
“IndiGo has had a phenomenal success in establishing itself as a world class airline, and I am so very happy to be given this opportunity to be a part of it. IndiGo is blessed to be operating in one of the highest growth economies of the world, and this opens up future opportunities for rapid growth,” Dutta said Thursday.
InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., parent of IndiGo, reported a 75 per cent fall in net profit to Rs 191 crore in the December-ended quarter as high fuel prices and currency depreciation adversely impacted the bottomline. The airline had a profit after tax of Rs 762 crore a year ago.
“Profitability was adversely impacted by high fuel prices and currency depreciation,” the airline said yesterday in a presentation to analysts and institutional investors.
While answering analysts’ questions during post-results conference call yesterday, Bhatia said, “We have a huge advantage in going international in that we are going there on single-aisle planes...In those (international) markets where we are going to fly with our single-aisle low-cost strategy, we will have huge profit margins. So, we are very excited about our growth opportunities internationally.”