India has the world’s fastest growing airline sector – yes faster than even the Gulf, much of whose traffic is again driven by India. Year on year growth is 17%.
Despite this, in its 100th year, the civil aviation sector in India is in near total financial chaos. Air India is a political plaything that has no business being a business, but is being kept alive just to cater to the whims and fancies of the political, bureaucratic and labour aristocracy. The two leading private airlines Jet and Kingfisher are hurting financially. After the on-going fiasco at Kingfisher, the auditors of Jet Airways have sounded the alarm bells. There is sole shining star is IndiGo, but even there some tarnish is appearing.
Has Indian aviation reached a tipping point, like the telecom sector did in India, more than a decade ago?
We also discussed the suit filed by the US airlines industry body, Air Transport Association of America (ATA) against the US Exim bank for providing loans to Air India for purchasing Boeing aircraft.
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