What is Wrong with Indian Aviation?

Looking at the content found relevant to aviation on mediawebsites these days, it really remains a question, what is so wrong with all these companies suffering loss. Come on, 2 of them earn profit, 2 are in near break-even points and 2 of them have almost vanished in air (oh, not in air!)

Primarily, there are 6 major airlines in India carrying passenger traffic. Viz., Air India, Jet Airways, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Kingfisher and Go Air.

Air India, being a government owned entity is no doubt in loss and would continue to be as long as it is with government. Kingfisher has not witnessed a single quarter of profit but has dare to touch new heights by introducing international flights and aplenty of in-flight entertainment. On the contrary, the more quarters people have, United Spirits and United Breweries experience a great quarter! :D

IndiGo, GoAir are not publicly listed entities and thus, all their profit reports are to be taken with a pinch of salt.

SpiceJet and Jet Airways, are on and off with profits and loss like heads and tails every quarter. However, I do not understand with all of them hiring IIM grads, what really goes wrong? Aviation is oft discussed industry in B-Schools across the globe. SouthWest Airlines and RyanAir case studies are something that every MBA grad has gone through.

Image Credit: The 2010 Photography Project 

Just to answer a simple question, what are the critical success factors for an airline? It would boil down to following things: 

Low turnaround time: i.e. The airlines should be in air for maximum time possible which brings in revenue. Minimum time parked in hangars at airports means lesser charge to be paid to airport.

Higher Occupancy: Yes, the aircraft needs to be in air for maximum time possible, but of course, with maximum passengers in it. If it starts flying with lesser number of passengers, imagine the kind of boomerang it would be in terms of revenue!

Sure, there are many other best practices that these airlines could follow learning from there western counterparts. But, it is more of a will than anything else!

Howsoever good practices these airlines would follow, there are problems in the external environment that they face. We must discount all Indian airlines for this. Their costs are definitely one of the highest in the world (jet fuel is costliest in India) and they are in pursuit of offering one of the lowest costs in the world.

Some best practices followed globally in the airline industry would be followed in a different article. However, having the same kind of aircraft, smart employee management, no complication of classes, minimum weight on aircraft, using smaller airports for saving cost (not applicable in India though), collecting waste from customers, one flight going to multiple destinations, low turnaround time, timeliness, high occupancy with help of codesharing, lease of aircraft, total productive maintenance, etc. would be helpful for any airline. I would love to elaborate on this in a different article.

BTW, based on any random parameters of your choice, who is your favourite airliner? I personally love Jet Airways. Be it JetKonnect, JetLite or the usual Jet Airways flight, I do not differentiate much. IndiGo is a public favourite but I find it the best one among all the low cost ones. Indigo and SpiceJet give a feel of travelling in a government state transport bus, Jet, Air India and Kingfisher give a very good feel and GoAir does not make you feel that you are travelling in a low cost carrier. But, Jet Airways gets the vote for service, convenience and one of the most aesthetically appealing (the image does some justice probably) air hostesses! :D