Building India’s Largest Airport Business in 20 Months
Client Overview
One of India’s largest conglomerates entered the airports sector as a new player, acquiring seven international airports — including India’s second-largest airport — along with a major greenfield project in the country’s biggest commercial hub.
- International Airports & Aero City Infrastructure
- 3500+ Employees
- Pan India
- Transition from Govt. of India + Family-owned to a Conglomerate
Transformation Goal
To deliver this transformation, the Organisation needed to integrate 6 Govt. run airports, 1 private run airport and 1 green field airport, into one integrated operating culture, operating at scale and efficiency.
- Growth: From 0 to 7 Functional Airports & 1 Greenfield Airport Project
- Acquired Capacity: 72M
- New Capacity (in Brownfield): 30M
- New Capacity (in Greenfield): 92M
Business Challenge
One of the most complex integrations in India’s aviation history during the peak of COVID-19, creating India’s largest airport business.
- Strategic & Operational Challenges
- Integrate 7 fully operational airports simultaneously
- Accelerate a greenfield airport project
- Transition operations from a government workforce to new employees within 90 days
- Avoid penalties worth ~$200 million for delays
- Maintain zero downtime across all airports
- Prevent labour unrest and ensure health, safety, and compliance
- Secure regulatory approvals, funding, and land acquisition
- Cultural Challenges
- Constituting new leadership teams for 6 acquired airports at phenomenal pace and integrating them into a new pan-India airports team.
- Transitioning leadership of 6 Govt. owned airports to the new leadership teams in 90 days. Establishing a new work culture.
- Hiring at speed & building capability at scale 1000+ workforce.
- Transition from Govt. employees to newly hired private sector workforce over 12 months, while establishing culture in parallel.
- Establishing new systems & processes for business operations and people
- Onboarding and integrating talent across teams/functions at scale
Engagement Objectives
Planet Ganges was brought in to architect and implement a full-scale culture transformation program:
- Create one unified airport holding company
- Recast leadership and teams across all 8 airports
- Co-create a vision for 5-20 years and a 5-year Org structure & capability plan
- Hire, train, and transition thousands of employees at pace
- Enable seamless integration with uninterrupted operations
- Optimize processes for productivity & scale
Approach & Methodology
01
Agile discovery and diagnostics
- Human diagnostics due to lack of Tech capabilities in Govt. airports
- Understanding culture & transitions required
- Board level decision on culture change or new culture creation
02
Relationship & trust building
- With existing leadership, unions, and regulators
- Transitioning relationships to new leadership
- Creating an engagement framework with regulators
03
Large-scale hiring & capability building
- Navigating challenging COVID situation
- Hiring and integrating talent virtually
- Building capability at scale virtually and on-site
04
Massive change management
- Transitioning emotions & human losses during COVID
- Augmenting safety, health & wellness, during COVID
- Establishing business stability and people collaboration
05
Co-creating a long term vision & strategy
- Envisioning 5-20 years of the Airports business
- Establishing the values & behaviours around scale & hospitality
- Drive for productivity and efficiency
06
Leadership alignment
- Around the ideas of airport as transportation, commercial & cultural hubs
- Acting for massive scale at speed
- Around dealing with ambiguity and regulatory conditions
Results in 20 Months
- A 5–20 year vision for the Airports business
- A 10-year strategic roadmap covering operations, commercial, customer experience, and digital
- Leadership teams hired & stabilised across all 8 airports within 11 months
- Transitioned all 7 operational airports with zero downtime
- Built India’s largest airport business in 12 months
- Established project teams to deliver $4 billion in airport development projects
- Established JV entities to build $10 billion investment driven aero-cities across 8 locations
- Shifted organisational mindset from “expertise-based” to learnability-driven leadership
- Inducted and assimilated senior leadership talent from diverse backgrounds into a family run conglomerate's culture
Client Testimonial
“The transformation that others take a decade, Planet Ganges enabled us to do in just 20 months.”
CEO, Airports Business
Planet Ganges is a prominent player in Business Transformation, delivering tailored interventions in Organisational Culture, Climate, and Leadership Capability.