IndiGo’s man for all seasons

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Editor's note: Nearly everyone in aviation believed IndiGo co-founder Rahul Bhatia had got it wrong. On 24 January 2019, the country’s largest airline named Ronojoy Dutta, who had joined the company as principal consultant the previous December, as its new chief executive officer. “It was a curious choice,” a senior executive from another private airline recounts. “Dutta was forced to exit United [the American airline where he was the president] after 9/11. And then, as CEO at Air Sahara, he wasn’t able to accomplish much.”  Not just that. Bhatia had roped in 67-year-old Dutta as CEO at a critical time for the airline. The charismatic Aditya Ghosh, who’d been president and de facto CEO of the airline for a decade, left in April 2018. Bhatia was to oversee daily operations in the interim and keep the seat warm for Greg Taylor, the former IndiGo senior executive who had now come back to take over as the CEO.  Nothing of that sort happened. Taylor, despite joining IndiGo, soon exited the airline amid murmurs that he was caught in the middle of a growing …