Airlines keep folding in India’s booming aviation market

Go Airlines India this week became the latest victim in the battle of the skies over India. It isn’t the first high-profile carrier to fail and it won’t be the last. Buoyed by an emerging middle class hankering to fly, Indian airlines ordered billions of dollars worth of planes in the past few years, creating a cauldron of competition in what is now the world’s most populous nation. Even before the industry was slammed by the pandemic, the fight for survival was intense. The lure of aviation has proven particularly attractive — and brutal — for wealthy entrepreneurs, eager to enter a burgeoning sector and wooed by the status of owning an airline. Go-Air, run by cookie-to-clothing magnate Nusli Wadia’s group, is the third high-profile carrier majority owned by a billionaire that has ceased to fly in the past 11 years. Story looks at what makes India both one of the fastest-growing and most difficult markets for operators, as well as suppliers such as Airbus and Boeing. <br/>