Whenever I read some aviation news and come across IndiGo, I always smile with satisfaction. The name of this airline is one of the best out there despite it seemingly random appearance. I’ll explain why I love this name in a moment – first, let’s have a little look at airline names in general.
What’s In A Name?
Airline names tend to always follow a pattern which mentions the country they originate from and some variant of air. Despite this, some airlines do have names that stand out for being different.
Cathay Pacific immediately springs to mind, with Cathay coming from an ancient name for China and Pacific as the airline had ambitions to one day fly the Pacific Ocean. Cathay is such a beautiful word on the tongue and it feels very romantic.
Australia’s Qantas is quite unique also. The word was originally an acronym for “Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services” and has since become a word of its own. Unusual names intrigue me and always create a desire to find out the reason behind the name.
Why Is IndiGo Special?
The reason I love the airline name IndiGo is that it has so many elements in one simple word.
First and foremost, indigo is a colour and the airline features this colour on its aircraft and in uniforms. That much is obvious. Next, IndiGo is a low cost carrier based in India, accounting for the “Indi” part of the name. Finally, there is the “Go” part of the name which is referring to travelling or going somewhere.
For this airline, the word indigo must have been a marketing executive’s dream. A commonly used word which is also a colour, incorporating most of the name of your country and referring to travel – it doesn’t get much better than that!
Overall Thoughts
IndiGo is India’s largest airline and they appear successful with their low cost model – who knows, one day I might get to fly them. What do you think of the name IndiGo? Do you know of any other airlines with cool names that I should know about? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Paul Spijkers via Wikimedia Commons.
Indigo does have a very smart way of making it seem on time. The block time for their flight used to be 45 minutes to an hour more than what the actual flight time was. When you land earlier than you were supposed to, you felt you landed on time. I think the regulator has cracked down on the practise now.
Must commend them on the way they work to ensure faster trash cleanup on their flights, which decreases slow around time.
That’s quite a lot more block time than is needed. All airlines pad out the block time to account for the ground delays before take off. You regularly see LHR-DUB timed at 1 hour and 30 minutes and it is always 50-55 minutes in the air. Interesting that Indigo had so much padding though! Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the comment!
Their flight number all start with 6E, ie 6E455, so they call their inflight magazine ‘Hello 6E’ (Hello Sexy) and it is full of clever and somewhat suggestive advertising. As a North American, IndiGo is possibly the best budget airline (potentially short of Virgin Australia) I have ever flown.
I knew they were 6E, but I didn’t get the magazine name so you’ve pulled the wool from my eyes there. That’s really great! 🙂 It’s clever on its own. Glad to hear you enjoyed flying with them so much – obviously they’re doing something right! Thanks for the comment!
I flew IndiGo twice in the last month. I also flew India domestically on SpiceJet and Air India as well as Jet Airways. The best of the lot is IndiGo. Well maintained, well priced, good service and best of all- on time.
It sounds like they’re the biggest carrier in India for those very reasons you mention. Excellent that you’ve tried them all too. Thanks for the comment!