Indigo: Paan Ki Dukaan

The real reason behind IndiGo’s fall isn’t what it looks like from the outside. The cracks were forming quietly inside the airline long before the meltdown hit the headlines.

And one person had already warned about it: Rakesh Gangwal, the co-founder who built IndiGo’s operational backbone and understood the airline better than anyone else.

Gangwal wasn’t just a co-founder. He was one of the sharpest minds in global aviation, a former CEO of US Airways, with decades of deep operational experience.

He understood airlines at a systems level: crew planning, buffers, safety rules, discipline, and the tiny details that keep a large network running smoothly.

At IndiGo, he built the operational backbone that made the airline famous for reliability.The strong processes, the sharp on-time performance, the clean execution; much of that came from his own experience, insistence on discipline, and data-driven decision-making.

And back in 2019, long before IndiGo’s current crisis, Gangwal raised a warning that today feels almost prophetic.

The Warning Everyone Ignored

In July 2019, during a major dispute with fellow promoter Rahul Bhatia, Gangwal wrote to SEBI accusing IndiGo of serious governance lapses. He highlighted issues like:

too much power concentrated in one promoter group,
weak board oversight,
questionable related-party transactions, and
decisions are not being challenged internally.

It was during this phase that he made his famous remark: “Even a paan ki dukaan follows some governance.”

He wasn’t trying to insult the company. He was sounding an alarm loudly and honestly.

Gangwal’s message was simple :IndiGo was drifting away from the governance standards that built its success.

Shortly after, he stepped back from the airline completely.

The Prophecy Came True

Today, IndiGo’s biggest meltdown shows exactly what Gangwal had warned about years ago:

Too much power concentrated at the top
Weak governance and poor oversight
Lack of transparency in key decisions
Operational red flags repeatedly ignored
Culture drifting from discipline to overconfidence

Gangwal was the internal force that questioned unrealistic growth, monitored staffing, and insisted on buffers. Once he exited, that accountability disappeared.

And IndiGo paid the price.

The Takeaway

Gangwal’s “paan ki dukaan” line wasn’t a throwaway comment. It was a prediction that loose governance would one day hit operations. That day arrived in December 2025.

An airline that once stood for flawless execution collapsed under its own weight, and the warning its co-founder gave five years earlier suddenly made perfect sense.

Great companies don’t fail overnight. They fail slowly, when internal discipline erodes, when governance weakens, and when no one is left to question decisions.

Gangwal saw that shift early.