PRIVATE INDUSTRY TAKING AVIATION BY STORM

The airline industry has again proved that whenever private enterprise is unleashed in any sector it takes that sector by storm. Defence and aerospace manufacturing could well replicate this feat within the next 20 years.

- JOSEPH NORONHA

POISED TO EMERGE AS THE WORLD'S THIRD-LARGEST AVIATION market by 2030 or earlier, India's airline industry has seen a remarkable transformation in recent years. And, unsurprisingly, private enterprise has been the driving force.

For several decades after Independence, aviation was the exclusive domain of state-owned carriers. But following the liberalisation of the economy in the early 1990s, a number of private airlines were started at sporadic intervals. Various challenges including financial turmoil, regulatory issues, and fierce competition among the contenders, especially post 2003, meant that many of these private carriers had an all-too-brief existence. Even the big fish like Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways eventually fell by the wayside. But fast forward to 2023, and it is private enterprise all the way. Even Air India, the airline founded by JRD Tata in 1932 and nationalised in 1953, is back under Tata's wing after seven decades.

STATE OF PLAY

The Tata Group is now attempting something unique - merging four airlines into two. Vistara will be absorbed by Air India as a full-service carrier while AirAsia India and Air India Express will be merged to form a single low-cost carrier (LCC) retaining the Air India Express name. The Group's combined fleet size stands at 219 currently. Earlier this year, with the aim of rapidly growing its 24.8 per cent domestic market share and 22.96 per cent international market share, it placed what was till then the largest single order in aviation history - a mix of 470 Airbus and Boeing airliners, narrow-body as well as wide-body.