S3 E06 | From IndiGo to Akasa: Aditya Ghosh on Winning in Indian Aviation

[00:00:00] Aditya Ghosh: Today you call it, your self-doubt and things like that imposter syndrome. So, I was beginning to question myself that am I good really, or am I good because I started off as a little kid in KNS and JSA, the partners like me and therefore I’m going. So, I wanted to test myself. I possibly could not work in another law firm because I was just too fiercely loyal to JSA.

And I thought, okay, let me go and work as an in-house counsel. Long story short, I went and interviewed at GE. Came back from the interview. Rahul asked me, where were you? I said, don’t tell Jyoti. I was interviewing for a job. He said, really? You’re leaving?

I don’t know you are looking for a job. I said, no, this is the thing. I just want to test myself out. So he said, okay, then come and join us. I said I didn’t know you were looking for someone. He said what is it to look like? And typical Rahul Bhatia style, he takes out a post it, hands it over to me with a pen, and says, put down, whatever you want, whatever, compensation or whatever it is.

So that’s how I came in. And, the first assignment that was given to me by that time, of course, this whole airline idea was like being thought about more deeply was to apply for the license and at least put together the application for the license and so on and so forth.

[00:01:34] Karthik Reddy: Welcome to another episode of Winning Beyond Boundaries, the podcast where we dive deep into the minds of trailblazers, who push past conventional limits to create lasting impact. Today, we are thrilled to be joined by Aditya Ghosh, an aviation industry visionary, who’s left an indelible mark on aviation and business at large.

From leading IndiGo’s meteoric rise to becoming India’s largest airline, to now steering the ambitious journey of Akasa Air, Aditya has consistently broken boundaries, embracing challenges in both domestic and international markets. Beyond the boardroom, his pragmatic leadership style, which balances operational excellence with a relentless focus on customer needs, has redefined what it means to scale businesses in highly competitive industries like airlines.

In this episode, we’ll explore Aditya’s journey from his early days as a lawyer to becoming one of India’s most dynamic business leaders. We’ll dive into the lessons he’s learned about international expansion, building sustainable businesses, and what it truly takes to lead with consistency in an unpredictable world. Once again, welcome to the podcast, Aditya. 

Welcome to the podcast, Aditya. 

[00:02:36] Aditya Ghosh: Thank you. 

[00:02:37] Karthik Reddy: Lovely to have you. Season 3 Winning Beyond Boundaries. And, we thought what better story to tell than the journey of how IndiGo was born. By the way, there was the last flight I took, before this, recording.

[00:02:51] Aditya Ghosh: And now you’re starting Akasa also. 

[00:02:54] Karthik Reddy: And the previous flight was Akasa. 

[00:02:55] Aditya Ghosh: Awesome.

[00:02:57] Karthik Reddy: So, I’ve tried both your brain children or your babies over the last week. And it’s a remarkable story. I keep telling people that, if IndiGo could be built in India, you can pretty much build anything in India.

And I would love to use today’s episode with you to double click on why I believe that and who better to give those answers than Aditya Ghosh. So, thanks again for being here today. 

[00:03:22] Aditya Ghosh: My pleasure, Karthik.

[00:03:23] Karthik Reddy: Usually, of course, people know you, but like our podcast talks to entrepreneurs, everyone from college kids to, people in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the startup world.

So not everyone might know who you are. So, I’d always love the audience to understand what shaped an Aditya Ghosh in his early years. We know you’re a Delhi boy all through, what are those early years like? What led you to the choices that you made, initially leading you to becoming a lawyer and then we’ll touch upon how that became a IndiGo man. 

[00:04:01] Aditya Ghosh: Before I answer that question, I’ll start off with something which happened this morning, literally this morning as I was taking the flight from Delhi, early morning flight. So I posted a photograph of mine in a dhoti in the last week. We had Durga Puja so I had posted. The very complimentary comments more about the outfit than about me, but there was one comment, by some handle, which has 10 followers. So I don’t know whether it is a fake handle or whatever it is. The handle basically said, the comment was something like that ​“I’ve heard you speak in various places, and I’m quoting, you give a manager vibe. You’re not really an entrepreneur and you’re basically, piggybacking on, Mr. Dubey in Akasa and Mr. Chatterjee in Chourangi. And you should not pretend to be an entrepreneur. You’re not. 

And I actually normally ignore, but I wrote a reasonably long reply and I mean, it genuinely. And I said that you’re absolutely right. Actually, I don’t know whether I’m an entrepreneur or not.

And because I always think, have I started something completely by myself? And I don’t think I have. The closest is yes, Chourangi with Anjan, where both of us are almost equal owners. But even there I ride on his coattail because, Anjan is such a, founded speciality restaurants, listed company, known restaurants forever.

But what I also mean by that is that’s where the deep admiration for entrepreneurs comes. I was saying this to you in the morning, we were having breakfast and just, at the end of it, I said, Karthik, I have just this great admiration. I’m in awe of great entrepreneurs. 

The fortunate thing is I’ve had the good fortune, luck, whatever you call it, of observing, entrepreneurs from close working with some of them, working alongside with some of them, whether it is Vinay or Anjan or anybody else. With that caveat, my early days, my father was a government servant. So we grew up in a government colony in Delhi.

[00:06:47.12] Karthik Reddy: Familiar with them. 

[00:06:48.20] Aditya Ghosh: And went to the same school from all the way from when I was five years old to when I passed out of high school. But when I think back, there are 3 or 4 things that always come back to me and I think in some ways they have shaped me later.

Firstly, when you’re staying in a government colony, everybody wears the same kind of clothes. Everybody goes to the same kind of schools. There are no foreign trips where your dad comes back with some or when your mom comes back with some fancy bag or a pencil box. I think both of us are about the same age.

And so we remember, those magnetic pencil boxes with a little, you click one and this eraser comes out. 

[00:07:37.01] Karthik Reddy: That was a high point of childhood. 

[00:07:37.10] Aditya Ghosh: That was a high point of childhood. So that was a great leveler. Parents, when they would meet. And, we all stayed close to each other. Nobody would talk about how much money they made.

Nobody would really talk about, what was the next, big thing that they achieved at work. All of them were doing important jobs in some ways building India and especially in the 80s and 90s, as India was going through the transition. All of these people could have taken some part of the credit and some part of the credit was due to them.

But they didn’t talk about that. I did not for a long time know whose dad had what designation, whose mom had what designation. I did not quite understand. I certainly had very little concept of which caste somebody was from or for that matter, which region. As Bengalis, I always say there are four kind of people in the world.

There is Bengalis. There is non Bengalis. There is South Indians and Punjabis. So divided into those four. We all went down to play with the same kind of shoes and stuff like that. Getting a tennis racket was like a one-in-a-few-years event. Getting new clothes was a once-in-a-year event, sort of a thing.

And not because people couldn’t afford it. Most of the time people couldn’t afford it, but even otherwise, even people who could afford it, it was just the way of, doing things. So I think, that kind of shaped me in always, even today being able to understand what I think makes most of us tick.

What is important in life, and that’s why I get very cheesed off or shy of, when people suddenly start talking about how much money they raised and how much money they need and all of that kind of stuff. I find it a little bit. 

[00:09:49] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. I think the value systems of even folks who are arguably the most privileged 1%, 30 years ago very different from that same 1%today. I think priorities have shifted. Narrative has shifted. Social media doesn’t help. 

[00:10:04] Aditya Ghosh: It was not a world of outsourcing. You had to do everything yourself. The second thing was that, there were lots of friends, because both my younger brother and I, we were late children. So the children of our neighbors, our other neighborhood uncle and aunties were at least 5, 6 years older. And they were all like, I didn’t realize at that time, everybody was going to IIT Delhi. Everybody was going to some medical college. At the same time, Karthik, all these, brothers and sisters and grandfathers, all of them were good at playing cricket and used to play football and used to go to IIT and somebody was a musician.

Somebody was a bodybuilder or somebody was used to play the tabla. So this, I grew up in an environment where I was surrounded by these role models. 

[00:10:59] Karthik Reddy: Overachievers and role models.

[00:11:00] Aditya Ghosh: Who were multi-dimensional personalities. This was the pre-quota kind of thing. 

[00:11:08] Karthik Reddy: That’s correct. There was no quota.

[00:11:08] Aditya Ghosh: That’s right. So you went to school, you studied hard, but you were also expected to do other things. It was not like you shut out the rest of the world. You were expected to read fiction. And you were expected to watch good films, and be able to have a conversation and be polite and all of that kind of stuff, right?

Your badge of honor was not your mark sheet. So today also, I have great admiration for, I like people who are multi-dimensional personalities. And for the longest time, for I think, 20 – 30 years, people were like, no, you have to stay focused and all of that. Today, suddenly leaders are expected to know art and, be able to go to an art fair and read books and be at school to play music and stuff like that.

I’m going to be meeting Pratik Agarwal of Sterlite, day after. He’s also a DJ, So that’s the second thing. 

But the third most, I think, important lesson, influence was my parents. My father did his master’s in economics, but I had a deep interest in history and English. My mother grew up in Delhi. Because my grandfather was also a government servant, but she had that multiple interests and while they kept telling us you have no inheritance other than your education, and you have to study hard, but my parents kept telling my brother and I, you have to be a good human being. You have to be a good human being.

I think, those influences, remain with me even today. So when I’m disappointed with myself, it’s when I feel I’m not being a good human being. When I’m disappointed with myself, I feel like I’m being arrogant. When I’m disappointed with myself, I feel I’m not reading enough or I’m not understanding enough of something which is outside my area of work. 

[00:13:20] Karthik Reddy: Fascinating. No, it’s wonderful to always hear these backstories on what shapes great leaders. And I’d love for all of this to weave into how your career then moved and progressed. 

[00:13:32.08] Aditya Ghosh: How did I become a lawyer?

[00:13:33] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. Why choose becoming a lawyer?

[00:13:35] Aditya Ghosh: So I read a Reader’s Digest article when I was in class 8, which was about, this team of doctors who operated on Ronald Reagan when there was an assassination attempt at him, these group of neurosurgeons and were able to take the bullet out and save him and all of that.

So as a 13 year old, I was impressed and influenced by it, that I wanted to become a doctor. My grandfather was a doctor. My uncles were doctors. I liked biology, so it was natural. But I really wanted to be a neurosurgeon. And funnily enough, the husband of my history teacher was also a neurosurgeon.

Now came class 11 and 12 and unlike, people like you, I was pretty disillusioned with science in class 11 and 12, like CBSE was just like cramming things down and I was just not good at that. And there was no liberal arts education in those days. So after doing high schools, science and math and everything, and sitting for medical entrance exams, I decided that I want to study something that I like studying, which was very unusual in those days.

So I started studying history. That was my undergrad degree. And while at college studying history, I got lucky. I was in Delhi University. So, I had all the time in the world to do debates, theater, music festivals and this and that. And so I was the president of the debating society and all of that kind of stuff.

Passed out of college. My father had retired. My younger brother was still in school. So obviously there was this pressure of now you have to do something to get a job. And the MBA was the sure-shot route to getting a job. I gave the entrance exams, got through a few business schools, but the penny dropped in thinking that look, while I’m interested in business.

This is the mid 90s, India has just opening up and all of that. In fact, 1996 and just this morning, I saw that the late Ratan Tata. In 1996, had written a personal letter to Narasimha Rao, basically saying that a lot of people are, I’m paraphrasing, a lot of people are criticizing you, but you should know that you’re doing the right thing, whatever it is.

So this is 96. I realized that look, unless I didn’t go to a top IIT. I didn’t top IIT. If I don’t go to IIM Ahmedabad and top out of there, I’m not getting a job at, in those days, Booz Allen or BCG or McKinsey or Bain or any one of these places.

And corporate law had just started being discussed in those days. You would find it in the business today type of magazines. So, I felt that could be one route to get closer to companies. But taking an easy route, which is basically law. Law, in those days, was a very easy course to get into. Like anybody could get into law. 

[00:17:18] Karthik Reddy: But when you landed, maybe J Sagar was a little bit of a startup themselves, but was that your first job? 

[00:17:25] Aditya Ghosh: That was my first job. I was an intern. I would actually started off in the IP sister firm of JSA called KNS Partners. There were three lawyers and Jyoti and Mr. Sagar and one intern, that is me. 

[00:17:43.00] Karthik Reddy: But learning from the best.

[00:17:43.26] Aditya Ghosh: And even the next year when I moved to Jyoti, I started off as his executive assistant. There were only 15 lawyers in JSA in those days. But like you said, it was a watershed event for me. Plain lucky. That I got to work right next to Jyoti as his executive assistant at the age of 21, 22. I can’t wait and gold the incredible ringside view that I got all the way from Bharti SingTel to like, electricity privatization, to power sector, to geographical indication in IP, to foreign direct investments. It was 

[00:18:36.04] Karthik Reddy: Amazing.

[00:18:37] Aditya Ghosh: It was absolutely insane. 

[00:18:38] Karthik Reddy: Best on site MBAs that you can get. 

[00:18:42] Aditya Ghosh: Absolutely. Those two years, first as an intern and as an executive assistant was amazing. And the first two months I earned Rs 900 a month. The next 11 months I earned Rs 1600 a month. The next 12 months I earned Rs 4600 a month. But imagine Karthik, there is no. 

[00:19:08.17] Karthik Reddy: You are getting paid to learn. 

[00:19:10.04] Aditya Ghosh: Exactly. It was invaluable what I learnt. And that’s why. Mr. Sagar remains just such an incredible influence in my life. 

[00:19:17] Karthik Reddy: And, so he put you onto IndiGo or how did IndiGo happen? Much later, I’m guessing, but still. 

[00:19:26] Aditya Ghosh: Interglobe was a client of JSA. 

[00:19:28] Karthik Reddy: Okay. 

[00:19:30] Aditya Ghosh: So I would see. 

[00:19:31] Karthik Reddy: A lot of people don’t know that Interglobe was a thriving business before IndiGo. So maybe you can weave that into the story. 

[00:19:38] Aditya Ghosh: Interglobe was a very large travel services business. people mistakenly call it a travel agent. They were not a travel agent at all. They used to represent over a dozen international airlines in India. They used to run a technology distribution business in India focused on the travel trade. They had just set up tech development center in 1998 – 99, which was my first exposure to Interglobe. So a bunch of different things.

And they’re very successful businesses. So I would see Rahul in his white kurta pajama come to meet Jyoti every once in a while. And gradually, I would start attending the meetings because I was Jyoti’s assistant and so on and so forth. That’s how I first got to know him. And very soon, in a year’s time, thanks to Ashok Fenn, who was the CEO of Interglobe at that time, Rahul was very early on in bringing in professionals.

Thanks to Ashok. I started doing a lot of Interglobal legal work. So for four years, five years, we got to know each other really well. And since there was no in-house legal department in Interglobal, all of the work was being done by me, and again, credit to them, credit to Rahul that I was deeply involved in many of the business discussions.

[00:21:06] Karthik Reddy: Yeah, good counselor eventually becomes that for somebody to bounce off.

[00:21:11] Aditya Ghosh: And I need to remind people that I was 24, right? I was 24. So I’ll come to something else in just a bit. Therefore, in 2002, December, Rahul and Rakesh met in Bombay because they were friends at the Belvedere and the Oberoi’s at Nariman Point. Talking about this idea of an airline. And I was there. So this is literally at the napkin stage. 

[00:21:43] Karthik Reddy: And at the first date. 

[00:21:44] Aditya Ghosh: At the first date. Yeah. And then in the meantime, the hotels business has started where Rahul was involved me a lot in. Seven years into JSA and this whole law firm thing, I was very blessed. But you know Karthik, I wonder if today you call it, your self-doubt and things like that, imposter syndrome. So, I was beginning to question myself that, am I good, really? Or am I good because I started off as a little kid in KNS and JSA, the partners like me and therefore I’m going.

So I wanted to test myself. I possibly could not work in another law firm because I was just too fiercely loyal to JSA. And I thought, Okay, let me go and work as an in-house counsel. Long story short, I went and interviewed at GE, came back from the interview. Rahul asked me, where were you? I said, don’t tell Jyoti. I was interviewing for a job. He said, really? You’re leaving? I don’t know you’re looking for a job. I said, no, this is the thing. I just want to test myself out. So he said, okay, then come and join us. I said, I didn’t know you were looking for someone. He said, what is it to look, and typical Rahul Bhatia style. He takes out a post it, hands it over to me with a pen and says, put down, whatever you want, whatever, compensation or whatever it is. So that’s how I came in. And, the first assignment that was given to me by that time, of course, this whole airline idea was like being thought about more deeply was to apply for the license and at least put together the application for the license and so on and so forth.

Serendipity, I always say that opportunity knocks several times at everybody’s door and I’m not saying it has to be out of greed or ambition, but just out of honesty or purpose, I think, one needs to actually try to take each one of those opportunities. I’m sure Karthik you’ve seen this hundreds of times with your portfolio companies. I always say, it’s not like you have any idea that what I’m doing today will lead me to something somewhere. 

[00:24:27] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. It’s never certain. 

[00:24:28] Aditya Ghosh: It’s never certain. There is never a plan. 

[00:24:30] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[00:24:31] Aditya Ghosh: You’re photocopying papers. Somebody notices you and gives you a bigger responsibility. So many times I go to these nice restaurant. In hill stations in India, it happens a lot. You’ll find a restaurant, which is like making some unique pizza or some German bakery or something. And there’s always this story. There was this person who was working there, the British owner was leaving, and gave it over the origins of Oberoi hotels.

So the lesson is that if somebody gives you a job of photocopying papers, do it with such diligence. Someone somewhere may notice you, no guarantees. And something better will happen, which will be far above and beyond your wildest expectation. 

[00:25:18] Karthik Reddy: Beyond photocopying papers, I know you’re doing a lot more, but I’d also realize even from the early days, I remember in a conversation we had during COVID, you mentioned you were very involved. You almost became like the Chief People Officer alongside being counsel. And I know there was a path, but very quickly, what led to you becoming CEO? So how did that trajectory move? 

[00:25:47] Aditya Ghosh: There is at least one journalist when I left IndiGo, there was something which was basically like, Aditya Ghosh was not really a CEO and it is all Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal and, other very capable leaders. And he was at best an HR manager or a chief HR officer. For the first 30 seconds, I felt bad. And then I was like, that’s true. Because none of us can claim unique or ownership or sole ownership about anything.

[00:26:32] Karthik Reddy: That’s true. 

[00:26:33.16] Aditya Ghosh: That’s one. So I’m deeply grateful for all the people, that I got to work with. But the other one is I take a great, for me, it’s a badge of honor to feel that, I am the Chief People Officer. At IndiGo, I used to say this, and I say this even at Akasa today. At IndiGo, I used to say this, I’m your biggest union leader. I used to say this to all my pilots on my flight attendants. I’m your biggest union leader. You come and tell me, you share whatever. I was supposed to get two bottles of water in the hotel room. I only got one. My cab reported late. My uniform is the same. The wheels of my bag are coming off.

[00:27:13] Karthik Reddy: Chief Grievance Office. 

[00:27:15] Aditya Ghosh: It’s like when we go to a doctor and we are waiting outside and suppose I have cut my hand with a piece of glass, I’m bleeding and I’ve got a handkerchief around this and I’m holding my hand like this. For me, like I’m in great pain. And if the doctor makes me wait or ignores me, I will be like screaming. But the doctor might be treating somebody who’s just had a heart attack and has been rushed in. But as the person with a cut hand, I’m expecting the same amount of attention from the doctor. As a CEO, as a leader, your colleagues are expecting the same. For that person, that cab reporting late, because of which he could not make it to his flight on time, or was rushed and was tense and arrived on his flight, like all flustered and hassled sweating and this, that, and the other is an equally large problem as somebody coming and saying, I have an aircraft on the ground because the engine is showing a malfunction. 

Now you as a leader, as a doctor, we’ll have to prioritize and understand where I have to put betadine and where we have to revive somebody’s heart. 

[00:28:47] Karthik Reddy: Put a stent in. 

[00:28:48] Aditya Ghosh: But you can’t say, you bleed for 8 hours because I’m doing 

[00:28:53] Karthik Reddy: No, a great leadership lesson. Yeah, no, it shows how much you evolved as a leader, playing those various roles.

[00:28:59] Aditya Ghosh: Because you see empathy is, if you’re forced to define leadership in one word, that is empathy. And I’ve been saying this for well before it became fashionable to say in COVID. Karthik, if you think of teachers, uncle, aunt, elder brother, sister, parent, who you remember fondly, it may not be the subject where you scored the highest. It could be a football teacher. It could be an English teacher. It could be a coach or whatever it is. It was somebody who did not give up on you. That’s the leader that you keep going back to. 

When you think about school and college and the first teacher that comes to your mind, maybe a drama teacher. It was just somebody who understood you, who did not give up on you, who made you realize your full potential.

Our job as a leader is exactly the same. So where somebody thought they were criticizing me in saying he’s the Chief HR officer. I actually think 

[00:30:10.08] Karthik Reddy: That’s the most proud title. 

[00:30:12.12] Aditya Ghosh: That’s the most profound compliment I would have got. 

[00:30:14] Karthik Reddy: And you also use your example, when I’m talking to other young leaders, I picked it up from you. And to Naveen Tiwari’s credit, I first heard it from him as well, InMobi, founder. A very similar outlook that almost the first 500, 600 people were in the firms of personally interviewed by you or a senior leader.

[00:30:38] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. In my case, the first 9 years.

[00:30:41] Karthik Reddy: The first 9 years, everybody went through.

[00:30:43] Aditya Ghosh: Every human being.

[00:30:44] Karthik Reddy: Amazing. 

[00:30:47] Karthik Reddy: And we only count the number of people who got hired. So that must have been three times that volume.

[00:30:52] Aditya Ghosh: So I, made a rough math, not accurate, but a rough math. I have done 140,000 interviews in my life.

[00:31:01.08] Karthik Reddy: Oh my God.

[00:31:03.03] Aditya Gosh: I used to, say…

[00:31:03.27] Karthik Reddy: Sounds scary even as you say it.

[00:31:06.09] Aditya Gosh: So if you go to terminal 1 at Mumbai airport, the ticket counter, so I would sit behind the ticket counter, so the window would face this thing and there’s a small little thing where, there’s a few printers kept and all that. I would sit there and interview people. There’s only place for two people to sit. But Karthik, of course, somebody may criticize that, what are you doing?

[00:31:39.07] Karthik Reddy: But it’s people, it’s all people.

[00:31:39.18] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. And that’s why the connect, today, I was on the Vistara flight coming into this thing. I’m taking the Akasa flight back. 

[00:31:48.18] Karthik Reddy: It’s timings. I am also forced to take all kinds. 

[00:31:52.07] Aditya Ghosh: Always timing. I was taking the Vistara flight in. The co-pilot came out saying he was ex-IndiGo. One of the co-passengers said I left IndiGo nine and a half years back. I was in finance team, in revenue accounting. You interviewed me. I came out, I was walking out of the aircraft. This guy very well-built and all of that with a little baby in his arm said, Aditya Sir, I said yeah, he says I’m a captain on a Falcon, but my wife was an IndiGo and then she came across and was like, I remember you, etc., etc. 

So, I think, forget about the employees, as a leader, typically I’ve seen, you cannot disrespect somebody who you know. If you know somebody well, it is a little bit more difficult to disrespect that person.

So respect, which is the first pillar on which organization cultures should get built. If I know you, if I’ve hired you, if I’ve had a conversation.

[00:33:09.15] Karthik Reddy: The bar is already.

[00:33:11.00] Aditya Gosh: Yeah, the bar is already higher, right? Now, even if I have to scold you, I’ll scold you like a parent. I won’t scold you like as if you’re some roll number, 1378 on a list of 20,000 people.

[00:33:22] Karthik Reddy: I can sense everything you’ve said that in a small firm we have the luxury of being far more proximate, but I think I’ve always amazed by IndiGo again, amongst the many attributes that I think, IndiGo showed the way in India, one of them is this ability for every person at every touch point that the customer sees in the brand, almost I joke about it, almost to a point that can look robotic is very, very deeply ingrained culturally that couldn’t have happened without a people strain in the firm being so strong. And you talked about one hack of interviewing, but the more I would love for my founders’ team. 

[00:34:08] Aditya Ghosh: Karthik, what you said, it cannot happen by accident. 

[00:34:13] Karthik Reddy: Yeah, that’s true. It has to happen with design. 

[00:34:15] Aditya Ghosh: So the other day, not the other day, a few months back for the first time, I met one of the two co-founders of this pet store called Heads Up For Tails. I met him for the first time. And Rohit Bansal of Titan, Rohit introduced me and I said, I’ve never met you before, but I’m going to say there must be something you’re doing here.

How is it possible? Any store I go to. Any employee of yours I talked to, they’re all polite. They’re all helpful. And I don’t know how well they’re doing, what is their financials, etc. But that’s a great litmus test that if on the front line when no one is watching, are you being able to deliver that?

There is a small coffee outlet called Café Espresso, in Delhi’s terminal 2 where Akasa takes off from. So I go there in the morning. I pick up coffee from there and go to the flight. I don’t know who owns them, but I’ll tell you there is something, that guy who gives coffee and there are obviously, various people on the roster…

[00:35:32] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. Because they keep rotating. I’m sure. 

[00:35:34] Aditya Ghosh: They’re all polite. They’re all helpful. So, they must be doing something right. 

[00:35:41.17] Karthik Reddy: Absolutely. 

[00:35:42.23] Aditya Ghosh: So one is interviewing, but I’ve thought about this a lot to try to distill what really works. I feel there are three pillars to it. One is like I was saying, a deep sense of respect that all of us are equals here, we just have different roles to play. Especially, in operational-heavy, execution-heavy businesses, no one human being, no CEO can say, okay, I’m firing everybody. I’m jumping in and I’m doing this myself because you can’t be a pilot. You cannot be a flight attendant. You cannot be an engineer. You cannot be a security professional and so on and so forth.

The second is, instant recognition. Instant gratification by recognizing people who are doing the right thing. I’m a big fan of positive reassurance. Karthik, so many times, 99.9% of the times, companies, leaders, when something goes wrong, absolutely will jump on the phone, call up that person, scream at that person, call the manager. What is going on? We need a review of this and so on. 

But when there are 10, 15, 20, 100 things that are happening well in the company, somebody has stepped above and beyond. Somebody’s displayed a value that you hold dear, even in the face of hardship, we don’t pick up the phone with the same amount of urgency. I don’t understand that. I don’t know what prevents us from doing that. 

[00:37:39] Karthik Reddy: Did you come up with some sort of systems or mechanisms to actually put this into action?

[00:37:44] Aditya Ghosh: Yes. So you have to set up all kinds of processes to capture, etc. But I’d say the top layer that works is, if you do this a few times and people understand, this is the way to do it. Human beings, we come from monkeys, so we ape well. So, if somebody does it and then somebody else does it, and then somebody else does it, then somebody else does it, then everyone will start automatically. That’s the power of culture. It’s a set of acceptable behaviors. So, you begin to do the same thing over and over again. 

For example, I’ve been in so many customer-facing businesses, when there’s a fog or a diversion or there’s a delayed flight, people as customers are screaming and my colleagues would be standing there listening patiently, whether it is reasonable, unreasonable, etc., and just stay calm. Karthik, if we had that kind of patience, just to be able to live through that hardship, I think it’s amazing. And the third pillar is rewarding people for that.

[00:39:11.09] Karthik Reddy: Kind of tenacity.

[00:39:11.17] Aditya Gosh: But the reward, because I come from low-margin businesses, does not have to be money. It can be a bigger responsibility and so on and so forth. I was sharing this example yesterday. If you think about the military, the army, for example, the military, you win something, you win a battle, you do something well, you get promoted maybe once in five years, right? It takes 20 years to become a colonel.

But every time you do something well, you’re given a even more difficult operation to run. You’re given an even more complex campaign to lead. But that’s what fires you up. It gives you that sense of mission and you’re beginning to try to go after that summit. 

[00:40:00] Karthik Reddy: So definitely want to switch gears to both IndiGo and now you trying to replicate that in Akasa. There was a new playbook IndiGo built. We talked about culture, people aspects. I won’t harp on that more. If I had to switch gears to the financial aspects. And go with the theme of the podcast, which is what I find unique about the IndiGo story. Unfortunately, lot of the other legacy airlines have managed to replicate that is, how are we winning as one of the most profitable airlines, most well-run airlines in the world. 

Of course, you’re dominant in India. Everybody knows that story. You’ve gone from 0% to 20% to 30% to now 60% market share. And, of course, you know the tricks of the trades. You’re going to win some of that back through Akasa, perhaps. 

But when you put that in, context of the global, airline industry, what people don’t seem to realize is your primary costs are indexed to dollar costs. So that’s the plane itself. We don’t make anything indigenously to make it cheaper. The fuel, which we import, the pilots and the hostess is maybe a little cheaper here, but there’s that good. They get poached by Emirates or BA or an Etihad. You’re competing with all of that. If you go above Rs 10,000 on a ticket, people are crying foul, saying, you make newspaper headlines in this country. That’s a $125 price. 

[00:41:38] Aditya Ghosh: Which is one of the lowest in the world. 

[00:41:39] Karthik Reddy: You can’t fly to New York-Boston at less than that, one way. Which is like a small hop. So, how are we able to demonstrate, and I know it has a history streaked from day one.

[00:41:52.26] Aditya Gosh: Yes.

[00:41:53.23] Karthik Reddy: I think, you’ve got two genius minds.

[00:41:55.21] Aditya Gosh: Yes. 

[00:41:56] Karthik Reddy: You were in the room, so maybe a little bit of a ringside view on how do we get the business model so right in IndiGo from day one? 

[00:42:03] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. 

[00:42:04] Karthik Reddy: You actually have told me once that the amount of paid in capital and the profitability that IndiGo had in the early days was just remarkable. And then, it’s not a flash in the pan as the IndiGo thing, seat reminds you every time 18 years and how time flies. 18 years and we’re still seeing nothing stopping it. And now you’re actually taking the battle to the global playground. It is not just the budget hauls to Doha and Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Colombo. But you’re now for the first time looking at long haul as well. I know you’re not a part of IndiGo actively, but how did this evolution stay so consistent in an industry like the airlines? So yeah, love to hear a little bit about it in whichever way you want to present it. 

[00:42:50] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah actually, I’ll go through some details, but the fundamentals remain the same for any of the large successful airlines in the world. And I define success by, financial success over a long period of time. Let’s think about that, right? Because you could have a sovereign airline, where financials may not matter as much. Or you could have a short-term sort of success where it can or it can happen for a short period of time. So in our business, as in many others, I think the real success comes from the sharpest cost structure, the sharpest cost structure, the lowest cost structure. The reason for that is that on the revenue side, it is commoditized. Today, if you open up an online travel portal and do a Delhi, Bombay, all the airlines are like few rupees off each other.

[00:44:07.24] Karthik Reddy: That’s right.

[00:44:10.11] Aditya Gosh: It’s not like I am running a full service carrier and I’m giving you a red and a blue carpet.

[00:44:14.20] Karthik Reddy: That’s right.

[00:44:15.17] Aditya Gosh: I’m able to charge you Rs 600 more, let alone 60% more.

[00:44:19.29] Karthik Reddy: Yes.

[00:44:20.22] Aditya Gosh: The religion has to be and absolutely sharp cost structure, the lowest cost structure, and finding a way to keep shedding that cost. Sharpening that cost, slicing away that cost on a continuous basis. So, even in Akasa today, as we are fighting or we’re going to compete with one of the world’s best in our own territory, rather than 20 years ago when you were…

[00:44:54.03] Karthik Reddy: You benchmark to a different…

[00:44:55.00] Aditya Gosh: That’s right. Benchmark to a different set of people. We have to be constantly focused on our cost structure being near that and ultimately, lower than that. And like you correctly said, it gets built on day one. The foundations of that cost structure pretty much gets built on day one. If you think about the airline costs, typically 40% or so is fuel. You look at the second big block, say 20% or so, is the aircraft ownership, lease, rental, all of that kind of stuff, say 10% to 15% is payroll, right? And then you have maintenance and other stuff. Typically, maintenance is dollar-denominated because the OEM is doing it for you or it’s some ways the inventory, the supply, all of that is coming from there. Fuel is the underlying dollar denominator.

[00:46:03.01] Karthik Reddy: Of course.

[00:46:04.06] Aditya Gosh: Lease rentals are dollar denominators, right? Now, having said that, let’s now go through a little bit more detail. If you can find a way to use newer and newer airplanes with better and better fuel-burning technology, then you’re reducing your fuel burn. It may be 1%, 2%, 3%, 5%, or 10% better than your competitor, but in a business where it’s a billion one-dollar ideas, that’s a significant flow into your bottom line.

[00:46:40] Karthik Reddy: So, surprisingly large saving for that bold bet of new planes.

[00:46:45] Aditya Ghosh: That’s right. Second, if you are, being able to bet on the opportunity of a market, in this case, India, and are able to wait it out and order airplanes. When there is some kind of a deep crisis or airplanes are not selling and so on and so forth, you get that structural advantage forever.

It’s like, think about this way, if I was building a hotel, I was not building, I was managing a hotel and I could find a way to lease that property at the best price for the best price for 15 years. And like when COVID was at its peak or something, today, somebody who’s going to compete with me is paying double the rental, if not double 70%-80% higher rental.

[00:47:41] Karthik Reddy: Correct. 

[00:47:42] Aditya Ghosh: Now, that cost is set in stone. You cannot change that anymore. So that has an impact on that aircraft ownership cost and the lease rentals and all of that kind of stuff. Similarly, related to that is maintenance. You will notice, whether, even in Akasa, you said we’ve ordered the airplanes, you’ve done the maintenance contract, right?

People don’t focus on that second part of the sentence or the press statement, but that’s very, very, very important, right? You ordered the airplanes, but you haven’t ordered the engines. You’ve ordered the engines, but you haven’t done the long term maintenance contract. You cannot create predictability of cost.

[00:48:29] Karthik Reddy: So all this was like super well-thought through from day one. 

[00:48:32] Aditya Ghosh: And like it’s no coincidence that the first hundred aircraft order of IndiGo was less than four years after 9/11 and the first 76 airplane order of Akasa doubled down to 226 airplane order is soon after the pandemic. 

[00:48:51] Karthik Reddy: Very similar strategies.

[00:48:54] Aditya Ghosh: Now, then these are what I call structural advantages.

Karthik Reddy: Right. 

[00:49:01] Aditya Ghosh: Like the rental of a building. 

[00:49:03] Karthik Reddy: That’s right. 

[00:49:04] Aditya Ghosh: After this, is all that relentless focus on how many people per airplane? How many people per rooms in a hotel? How many people per manufacturing unit? Where can you have…? In India, because of what you said, we were till lately used to these very low-labor costs and stuff, we used to throw more people at the problem. Pandemic to a great extent has shown when people really need to look and take a good hard look at their own organization, you realize how much fat you actually collected.

[00:49:49] Karthik Reddy: That’s correct. And it’s all replaced. It’s a lot of dumb stuff which can be taken out by tech.

[00:49:53] Aditya Gosh: Absolutely. 

[00:49:54] Karthik Reddy: And I think IndiGo has also been a pioneer on that front. 

[00:49:57] Aditya Ghosh: And I think great companies are like that. Great companies are like that. And, then one more specific thing. It doesn’t hold out to be true a 100% of the time. But if you’re running a business in India, typically, in a lot of cases in many, many years, the US dollar-rupee exchange rate and the fuel price have opposing trends.

So, when the dollar appreciates against the rupee, usually fuel price comes down or the other way around. I’m saying it doesn’t, but over a 20-year period, it has played out.

[00:50:40] Karthik Reddy: It has played out well. Fascinating. Any new tricks in Akasa and what made you, at one level think about, I’ve done all that I want to at IndiGo and what made you also come back to that industry?

[00:50:56] Aditya Ghosh: So, Akasa is, of course, Vinay’s idea. 

[00:50:58.08] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[00:50:59.03] Aditya Ghosh: And Vinay thought of it in the middle of the pandemic when we were in the middle of the lockdown and he called me the next morning. So really, the credit goes to him to be that brave and courageous. And then a few months later, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala reached out to me.

What convinced me to come back, at the end of the day is exactly what was true in 2005 also. India is a very large market with very low aircraft penetration. In 2005 – 2006, there was one passenger aircraft for every 50,000 Americans and one passenger aircraft for every 2.4 million Indians.

[00:51:49.11] Karthik Reddy: 50,000 and 2.4 million.

[00:51:51.06] Aditya Gosh: Today, it is 50,000 and about 3 million.

[00:51:56.03] Karthik Reddy: Oh, it’s gotten worse.

[00:51:56.24] Aditya Gosh: Because we added 300 million people, right? And we only added 400 aircraft.

So that fundamental remains the same, but Karthik, that’s why I get so excited about consumer businesses, in India. When I say consumer businesses, it doesn’t have to be D2C.

[00:52:14.02] Karthik Reddy: I understood. 

[00:52:14.16] Aditya Ghosh: It could be a manufacturing business. It could be anything.

[00:52:15] Karthik Reddy: Anything. Yeah. It could service somebody. 

[00:52:17] Aditya Ghosh: So, it’s not like even in a crowded space, what looks like a crowded space, you have that ability to create great businesses, which stick to the fundamentals and do something uniquely, structurally different from, everybody else. Otherwise, why would you start another coffee chain? And why would you start another chocolate factory and so on and so forth?

There is enough coffee and chocolates, but there is always room, and I truly believe not to, sound jingoistic, but just the math will show that if there are 180 million new Indians coming into the workforce over the next 23 years, they’ll be consuming. Now what price point they’re consuming at, what they’re consuming at is for an entrepreneur to be able to spot, but they will be consuming. They will be spending money, and there is enough opportunity to create businesses. 

[00:53:08] Karthik Reddy: And, as you venture, as you see Indian airline firms venturing into other geographies, I know airlines tends to be a protectionist mindset. And it’s a quid pro quo. Other countries won’t give you landing rights if we don’t give them landing rights.

Given all of that, are we more confident that we’ll win over more of the region’s power? Is that a way to expand as well or is India large enough to just go keep winning? But Indians are traveling everywhere. So, the idea is to service the Indian aspiration, right?

[00:53:46] Aditya Ghosh: I think it is a bit of both, but my personal view, India is very large, very under-penetrated, and there’s a lot going on. Dare I say not all the airlines were flying in the sky today will be around 10 years from now. So if anything, it will need even more capacity than we have today, right? 

On the other hand, like you said, with hundreds of millions of Indians wanting to travel and tens of millions of Indians now traveling abroad. It’s a great way to piggyback and to take some of these Indian products out there, whether it is a Haldiram, whether it is an airline, whether it is a hotel chain, right? With this diaspora, with this reach, in a place like London, food capital of the world, literally hundreds of thousands of restaurants.

The restaurant that Anjan and I started, two years back, I’d say reasonably doing well because there was no Calcutta food. There was no Bengali food, right? So it is about looking for that opportunity. And in the case of travel, it is absolutely, I think it will apply both to airlines, but also to hotel chains and an Indian sort of Food, F&B.

[00:55:17] Karthik Reddy: No, we’re playing into it. We’re seeing it. As you rightly said, consumption is just erupting in different forms. That said, are you both a believer in upper-end experiences and value experiences? 

[00:55:32] Aditya Ghosh: I tend to like affordable segment of the market more, but let me nuance it by saying, definitely like things which are of a sharp cost structure. Ideal will be you have a very low-cost structure and you’re able to charge a premium. Because of the scarcity value etc.. That’s ideal situation, right? Increase the willingness to pay for the customer but is there always going to be some number of people who will like the premiumization?

Yes, absolutely. Now, having said that I have to say this, Karthik, 182 million Indians coming into the workforce. It’s a rhetorical question to ask whether we’ll be able to create enough livelihood. And what worries me is that either we’ll realize this big Indian dream or we have the largest, most disappointed population in the world.

[00:56:33] Karthik Reddy: It’s our job to create that opportunity. 

[00:56:35] Aditya Ghosh: And it’s our job to create an opportunity. 

[00:56:37] Karthik Reddy: Collectively, we are sitting in a position of privilege to be able to finance them, come up with ideas, build large corporations sustainably.

[00:56:44.11] Aditya Ghosh: Correct.

[00:56:44.03] Karthik Reddy: Otherwise, the employment vanishes. There’s no point in building a quick buck here and there.

[00:56:50] Karthik Reddy: To wrap up, I thought, maybe you can give us a little bit of a sneak peek. I know I’m trying to be sneaky here on two very private individuals, Mr. Bhatia and Mr. Gangwal. So I think, for someone who’s known, Rakesh and Rahul as the founders of IndiGo, both intensely private people, not too many people know, how behind the scenes this partnership came to, build one of the best airlines in the world.

I’m just curious, is it something unique about what both of them brought? Because culturally the firm got set on day one in a very peculiar way. Could any other combination have built something like an IndiGo? And if it was uniquely them, what would you think are the top one or two things that made them be the creators of this airline idea that nobody else did before?

[00:57:39] Aditya Ghosh: I really do think it’s a pretty unique combination. Because while both of them are very understated people, very down to earth, they’re not chasing private jets and sailboats and stuff like that. Both of them have tremendous relentless, pursuit of excellence. Having said that, they both come with extremely complimentary skills, and I think that when it works, I believe that two human beings with very complimentary skills, but whether they have a deep sense of respect for what the other person is bringing to the table because I don’t have that.

And I see it in someone else who does it so much better. And in the case of the airline, and dare I say that, in Akasa, I can see the same shades where as investors, they were like, we’re investors or whatever and let the management team, leadership team do its thing.

Rakesh’s ability to really help us focus on what was key and fundamental levers to making the business successful. Rahul’s ability to imagine and bet on the opportunity of India 20 years back, 20 – 24 years back where today everybody talks about the India opportunity. The ability to pick people and back them up.

There’s that story I’ve repeated often. That on the eve of my taking on the operating role, I sent him an SMS saying, Rahul, I’ll give it my best shot. And he immediately replied back saying, Aditya, that’s all I’m looking for. Rakesh, even once a year when I would meet him, we would have phone calls sometimes five times a week, sometimes once in five weeks, but we would meet once in a year at least.

And it was extremely painful because one, he was relentless and he would say five things at the end of those five days where I’d be like, how did I ask as a team not think of this looking into this business every day. 

[01:00:19.04] Karthik Reddy: Everyday, yeah. Sometimes the distance helps. 

[01:00:20.12] Aditya Ghosh: Yes, of course. And that meeting would finish. And the next thing was, okay, are we going to dinner at Haldiram or going to have an ice cream?

So I think that ability to relate to people, that relatability was like very, unique, I think. 

[01:00:43] Karthik Reddy: No, and I keep saying this nowadays. I’m seeing it more and more that, in venture people tell us or what happens is you get into the strap of trying to find patterns. And the reason I try to illustrate the uniqueness of this is, we can always keep joking. Every story worth writing is not that of the pattern, but the exception to it. That’s correct. It’s not like hundreds of people didn’t think they could build an airline. 

[01:01:09] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. And it’s not like some, two people said, we’ve got to start looking for a business. Let me look for a co-founder. 

[01:01:17] Karthik Reddy: Here I think, as you said they had a right to win. Someone who was doing Interglobe, which is not known to too many people. Got very large, profitable business before IndiGo and how eminent Rakesh was probably the highest-ranking Indian in the US aviation industry.

[01:01:34] Aditya Ghosh: If I had to pick one for each, I would say Rakesh is the smartest airline brain in the world, and I’m not exaggerating. So many smart people around the world. On the other hand, Rahul, out of the hundreds of qualities that he has, but if delegation was an art form, Rahul Bhattia is a Michelangelo.

[01:02:02] Karthik Reddy: Oh really. 

[01:02:02.01] Aditya Ghosh: So, I think it is truly unique and I’m, privileged to have worked alongside them.

[01:02:10] Karthik Reddy: No, it is been wonderful chatting. I’m going to stop with, our regular thing and go to a fun sort of rapid fire section. But before that I remember and 

[01:02:22] Aditya Ghosh: Then, I got a coffee hamper.

[01:02:25] Karthik Reddy: And then, I remember, I think when you took over as, I don’t know, at that point, maybe your title was CEO or President or whatever. And I walked into one of my morning runs to Delhi and there you were in a Bombay-Delhi flight on the first row on the other side of the aisle. And I’m typically more shy than most people think, but I had to step up and say, congratulations for building such a great airline.

And I don’t know if you remember that encounter, but I walked you through to the luggage counter on Terminal 1 in Delhi. So that was my first, interaction and the fascination for IndiGo has gone far enough to be a dedicated part of my quarterly newsletter commentary in 2012. So, I think it just came from, of course, being a frequent flyer because that’s the perils of the job, but just seeing how differently it was run was very apparent to a keen observer of the aviation industry.

Once again, thanks for your service to that journey. And, it’s been a pleasure having you today. 

So some fun questions. I know by the way, before it’s not on my list, but the impromptu one is some books have started coming out on the IndiGo story. Any that you’ve read and you would recommend? 

[01:03:36] Aditya Ghosh: I’ve not read. I’ve browsed through one or two of them. I would not recommend. 

[01:03:43.14] Karthik Reddy: Okay. That’s fine. We’ll hope that people get as much as they can from this podcast. Then, One book that has shaped your leadership style otherwise though. 

[01:03:52] Aditya Ghosh: Actually, it’s not one book, but I feel that I’ve learned a lot from fiction. Is it? but I’ve learned a lot from just observing and listening to people, And now since you said fiction, you have to pick a book. I’m a big fan of Amitav Ghosh. A big fan of William Dalrymplel, who’s not fiction. 

[01:04:16] Karthik Reddy: History set in a fun way.

[01:04:16] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. There’s a podcast called The Empire. 

[01:04:18.18] Karthik Reddy: I’ve heard, I binged it on my recent. 

[01:04:21.05] Aditya Ghosh: It’s amazing. 

Karthik Reddy: It’s great storytelling. 

[01:04:22] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah, it’s amazing.

[01:04:23] Karthik Reddy: 15 episodes _____ is as good as him that. 

[01:04:26] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. So he’s written in a new book now, but I think today podcasts are a great source. All of us don’t have enough time to read. 

[01:04:35] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. We can keep listening. Yeah, that’s what I did with Empire. I haven’t read Darwin Pool, but I actually heard all 15 episodes of the Indian piece at least.

[01:04:43] Karthik Reddy: Go to travel destinations for a quick recharge, India, abroad 

[01:04:46.28] Aditya Ghosh: Rishikesh.

[01:04:47.22] Karthik Reddy: And overseas? 

[01:04:49.10] Aditya Ghosh: I think London. I know it’s very boring, but I just find it very comfortable. 

[01:04:54] Karthik Reddy: I know this is a tough question given how many great folks you’ve worked with and seen from the outside, but a business leader that you admire the most?

[01:05:02] Aditya Ghosh: Quite a few. Rajiv Bajaj comes to mind straight away. And of course, Rahul, Rakesh and Jyoti of course, because I worked with them. But, I think, Rajiv Bajaj, Ashish Dhawan, Pramod Sinha, these are people I feel like, how can one human being do so many things in one lifetime?

[01:05:24] Karthik Reddy: Lovely. No, that’s a great way of putting it. And your own leadership style, I know you said, Raul is the king of…

[01:05:30.06] Aditya Ghosh: I think empathy. 

[01:05:30.17] Karthik Reddy: Empathy. 

[01:05:31] Aditya Ghosh: I hope that’s what people would say. 

[01:05:33] Karthik Reddy: Best advice you’ve received. 

[01:05:35] Aditya Ghosh: Funnily enough it was not advice, but it was like almost like a stamp of approval. Dr. Ram Charn.

[01:05:41.05] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[01:05:42.29] Aditya Ghosh: The famous.

[01:05:43.07] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. The management guru. 

[01:05:45.03] Aditya Ghosh: Management guru. Ram somehow has always been very fond of me. And, couple of years back having dinner, he said to me, by the way, Ram never smiles. I’ve never seen him smile. And he is not very, very [01:06:00] Karthik Reddy: Very professorial. 

[01:06:00.20] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah, he’s very professor.

[01:06:01] Karthik Reddy: Glasses down. 

[01:06:02.09] Aditya Ghosh: And, he said to me, Aditya, in life do what you love and excel. And that was a great stamp of approval because the stories that I was saying, I’m interested in so many different things and doing history was something I loved. Studying law was something I liked, running an airline was a great opportunity. And, that pursuit of excellence is, I think very key. 

[01:06:31] Karthik Reddy: And similarly, what advice to a great startup entrepreneur? Would it be the same? 

[01:06:36] Aditya Ghosh: I’d say be young and enthusiastic. Don’t be young and impatient. 

[01:06:41] Karthik Reddy: If IndiGo hadn’t happened, what do you think the path would have been for you? Would you have been a lawyer? 

[01:06:46] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah, I would have been a lawyer. Would have loved to be a teacher, but probably been a lawyer. I really did enjoy being a lawyer. 

[01:06:56] Karthik Reddy: Any one thing in your current life that people don’t know much about? What are you secretly doing other than being in the restaurant business and the aviation business?

[01:07:04] Aditya Ghosh: Actually, I am, really relentlessly pursuing now, 10 or 15 different things, whether it is, supporting a foundation, whether it is spending time with my children, whether it is building out and working with the companies that I, either invest in, etc. I’d say touch wood, Karthik, I’m super busy. But there isn’t anything that I can think of saying, I’d rather not do that. 

[01:07:38] Karthik Reddy: Lovely place to be. And, but… 

[01:07:41] Aditya Ghosh: And I do not know whether that will lead to financial success or not. 

[01:07:45] Karthik Reddy: That’s fine. It’s even better. It’s a good place to be. And in the midst of all that, anything hobby or something that you thought you should put more time into, but you never got time to do?

[01:07:54] Aditya Ghosh: Two things that come to my mind straight away. I wish I was spending more time reading. And I wish I was spending more time horse riding, those two.

[01:08:03.00] Karthik Reddy: You’ve learned. 

[01:08:05.15]Aditya Ghosh: Yeah. Over the last year or so, I’ve had no time to go. 

[01:08:11] Karthik Reddy: Wonderful. No, as always, been a pleasure to talk. I know, we haven’t had the chance to engage until a few years ago, but I’m grateful for that first opportunity. That’s right. 

[01:08:21.17] Karthik Reddy: Thank you. You’ve been always very kind. 

[01:08:22.27] Aditya Ghosh: This ability to have these conversations and I wanted the world to hear your version of how IndiGo came about and how hopefully Akasa becomes an equally compelling story. 

[01:08:35] Aditya Ghosh: Early start, good foundation, but we’ve got a long journey ahead. 

[01:08:39] Karthik Reddy: No, but yes, as you said, the market’s growing like crazy and they can’t be one IndiGo with 60% market share forever. There’s room for a lot of folks. Absolutely. Thanks again. 

[01:08:51] Aditya Ghosh: Thank you very much.

[01:08:52] Karthik Reddy: Aditya, As you know UltraHuman is one of ours. They’ve kindly agreed to give all our guests get married to you by giving you a ring. That’s right. This is a sizing kit. This is not the ring. So you have to give us your sizes and we’ll send you. 

[01:09:06.13] Aditya Ghosh: Oh, thank you very much. 

[01:09:07.05] Karthik Reddy: So you and, it could be a child, I think, one of the best, products. I’m very proud of them for becoming a global product, competing against the best. And we think they’ll make us proud. 

[01:09:19.29] Aditya Ghosh: Yeah, it’s amazing. 

[01:09:21.14] Karthik Reddy: Sits in our team this year, Winning Beyond Boundaries and, can we actually go and build a world-class product out of India. Looking forward to seeing that happen, but in the meantime, we will hopefully be a proud owner of one. And a small gift from us. 

[01:09:37] Aditya Ghosh: Oh, that’s great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Karthik, thank you very much. 

[01:09:42.24] Karthik Reddy: Pleasure. I enjoyed the conversation. Thank you. 

We thank IDFC First Bank for being our annual partner. IDFC First Bank is deeply engaged with the startup community in India. Their commitment to fostering innovation and supporting entrepreneurship has made them a valuable partner in the growth journey of numerous startups, including many, Blume Portfolio companies. This partnership helps us in our mission to back the next generation of revolutionary founders in India.