IndiGo achieves operational excellence with STT GDC India Data Centre

IndiGo is India’s largest passenger airline with more than 60% market share as of July, 2020. The airline primarily operates in India’s domestic air travel market as a low-cost carrier, focusing on the three pillars of low fares, being on-time and delivering a hassle- free experience. Over time, IndiGo Airlines has become synonymous with being on-time.

Since its inception in August 2006, the carrier has grown from one plane to a fleet of 276 with a range of aircrafts for each type of operation and high reliability. The airline flies to 87 destinations with 63 domestic and 24 international destinations.

Indigo is not just the most efficient airlines in India but compares well with its global low-cost peers in this aspect. The airline is constantly enhancing its engagement with passengers to augment the travel experience. From multi-channel direct sales, including online flight bookings, call centres and airport counters, to online flight status checking, and an exclusive Android app, IndiGo has transformed air travel in India, establishing itself as a preferred airline where low fares combine high-quality experience.

“STT GDC India has met our data centre requirements of zero downtime and quality services, supporting us whenever there have been any requirements

Vivek Kaul, Associate Vice President - IT, IndiGo

Customer Challenge

While the climb to the top is challenging, retaining the top slot is even harder and therefore, the airline must continuously innovate to enhance customer experience while ensuring safety.

Managing an airline has layers of complexity—while delivering a customer experience is the end result, there are huge operational demands that must be efficiently and effectively managed to deliver the flying experience. This includes aircraft maintenance, operational planning & optimization, crew management and route optimization, enabling fuel efficiency while accounting for a large number of variable factors.

The degree of complexity is acute, as airlines operate in highly connected environment and this interdependency in unpredictable responses, as sometimes, the complexity lies beyond cognitive limits. Airline operations, therefore, require high degree of visibility and transparency to take predictive actions to reduce cost, and ensure operational safety and timeliness, while remaining competitive with measurable customer engagement strategies.

Technology is the key pillar in IndiGo’s strategy to achieve operational excellence. Towards this, a robust, reliable and highly available infrastructure is an imperative. IndiGo wanted a data centre provider to deliver reliable hosting solutions, so it can focus on running the airline and managing customer expectations.

STT GDC India Solution

STT GDC India has worked closely with IndiGo to meet its overarching need for high uptime, availability and security with complete data centre solutions. Leveraging the partnership since inception, IndiGo uses STT GDC India to host its primary and disaster recovery sites, wherein, STT GDC India provides best-in-class infrastructure provisioning along with necessary power and cooling, allowing IndiGo to focus on managing operational complexities and innovate to stay on top of the game.

The purpose-built data centres enable IndiGo to experiment with new digital initiatives, while meeting its demand for high-performance applications. Being telco neutral, STT GDC India provides IndiGo the flexibility to partner with any network provider, and access its data centre at high-speed, irrespective of geography.

Following global best practices, STT GDC India Data Centre provides layered physical security, equipped with tools and process, which control access and detect and prevent intrusion. Validated with international security certifications, such as ISO and SOC, STT GDC India enables IndiGo to meet with security and compliance requirements.

Customer Benefits

IndiGo has successfully leveraged technology to empower operations and deliver differentiated customer experience.

“STT GDC India has met our data centre requirements of zero downtime and quality services, supporting us whenever there have been any requirements,” says Vivek Kaul, Associate Vice President - IT, IndiGo.

In addition, following benefits have accrued to IndiGo:

• Enabled greater focus on managing operational complexities
• Experiment with digital initiatives to enhance customer engagement
• Meet stringent compliance and regulatory requirements
• Achieve sustainability goals as 30% of energy required to power STT GDC India data centres are from renewable sources