Can Air India become king again ?

Last Tuesday, junior aviation minister Mahesh Sharma informed the Rajya Sabha that Air India will make an operational profit of INR80m by the end of this fiscal. A day later, aviation secretary RN Choubey said that the airline will make a net profit in 2019. Both announcements are significant. An operational profit will be a first for the airline since it was merged with the erstwhile Indian Airlines, its domestic counterpart, in 2007. A net profit in 2019 will come a year ahead of the projection SBI Caps, the investment bank arm of State Bank of India, which had prepared a turnaround plan in 2012. These milestones will be mark a remarkable change of fortunes for an airline that has long embodied all that is terrible in Indian aviation. <br/>