InterGlobe Aviation-run IndiGo, which launched its BluChip programme in September 2024, flew 107 million passengers in calendar 12 months 2025, knowledge from India’s aviation regulator present.
Air India, which relaunched its loyalty programme in November 2024, has 10 million members in its Maharaja Membership, up from two million in January 2022, when the Tata Group purchased the airline. Tata Sons, the holding firm of the privately held aviation enterprise, merged Vistara with Air India, each full service carriers, in November 2024, giving a lift to its frequent-flyer scheme.
A single loyalty programme being carried out for Air India and its funds provider, Air India Specific, is predicted to be full by the top of this calendar 12 months, in accordance with an govt at Air India and Air India Specific.
Mint independently couldn’t verify the variety of Air India Specific frequent flyers.
“Trials are at the moment underway (in regards to the loyalty programme of Air India and Air India Specific) and a broader rollout is predicted within the latter a part of 2026. It is going to be a phase-wise merger,” stated a second govt. Each executives did not wish to be identifed.
IndiGo, Air India, and Air India Specific didn’t provide a remark.
Factors sharing throughout AIX, AI
Within the first part of the loyality programme integration, Air India prospects will have the ability to redeem Maharaja Membership factors on Air India Specific flights. Within the second part, Air India Specific prospects will have the ability to use NeuPass factors on Air India’s community, considerably increasing redemption choices. NeuPass is a Tata Group rewards programme that aggregates factors on spending on its manufacturers.
The combination is essential as a rising share of home and short-haul routes are being shifted from Air India to Air India Specific, as a part of Tata’s technique to place Air India as a premium, three-class provider targeted on main metro markets.
At current, Air India Specific flies to extra locations inside India than the full-scale provider. This implies nearly all of passengers can’t earn factors on their journeys since Maharaja Membership factors are earned solely on Air India and Star Alliance flights, not on Air India Specific flights.
“The Air India Specific integration was a must-do merchandise. The reason being {that a} chunk of the community is being taken away from Air India and handed over to Air India Specific to function the flights. Air India plans to serve premium markets (Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru), the place its three-class airline configuration could be accommodated,” stated Ajay Awtaney, founding father of LiveFromALounge.com, an Indian loyalty program analytics web site.
Air India can also be positioning loyalty as a part of its broader premium transformation, increasing its Maharaja Lounge idea into extra “luxe” experiences with redesigned areas, improved meals choices, and partnerships with premium manufacturers. It’s planning new lounges in worldwide hubs equivalent to San Francisco and New York.
BluChip @ 8% of spends
IndiGo, in the meantime, is taking a unique strategy. Its BluChip programme is a straightforward revenue-based mannequin that provides eight factors for each ₹100 spent, that may be redeemed towards free tickets, seat choice, additional baggage, and precedence companies. A key differentiator is that factors don’t expire for energetic members.
The airline launched a “Stretch” product, and permits prospects to improve to those premium seats utilizing a mixture of money and factors. The business-class product, launched in November 2024, is at the moment accessible on eight home and 9 worldwide routes with plans for growth within the coming months.
“We’re increasing Stretch to a complete of 65 plane, enabling wider community choices for enterprise and premium prospects,” stated IndiGo chief govt Pieter Elbers through the airline’s January 2026 earnings name.
Lengthy haul flights to Athens, launched a couple of weeks again, are seeing introduction of those premium seats too.
IndiGo has employed loyalty and funds skilled Nik Laming as a guide and is exploring partnerships that enable prospects to earn BluChip factors past flights, together with by way of banks, fintech companies and life-style manufacturers equivalent to Nobero.
Loyalty takes centrestage
The worldwide marketplace for journey loyalty programmes was valued at $29.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to achieve $52.6 billion by 2030, rising at a CAGR of 10.4%, in accordance with a report by Market Glass Inc., a worldwide market insights firm, revealed in January 2026.
Business executives say loyalty programmes have gotten essential as airways face stress on ticket costs and rising prices, whilst passenger development slows. India’s home air visitors development fell to three.5% in 2025 from 6% within the earlier 12 months.
“For Air India, scale stays the most important benefit as soon as its group-wide loyalty programme is totally built-in. For IndiGo, the problem might be sustaining engagement with no premium long-haul community,” stated Mark D. Martin, founding father of aviation consultancy Martin Consulting.
Nonetheless, IndiGo’s fast progress displays a deeper change, he stated.
“5 years in the past, loyalty wasn’t even a part of IndiGo’s technique. In the present day, it’s central to how airways take into consideration long-term development and repositions itself as a match for function airline,” stated Martin.
To place numbers in context, Air India Group flew 45 million passengers in 2025 with a 27% marrket share; lower than half of market chief IndiGo, that carried 107 million travellers (64% share of market), exhibits December knowledge from regulator Directorate Normal of Civil Aviation.
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