Air India chief executive Campbell Wilson insists that the privatisation of the flag carrier means the country’s airlines are better positioned to take advantage of the huge growth potential in India, with the market now being commercially minded.
“In terms of competition, Air India was the spoiler in the game when it was government-owned,” Wilson said during a roundtable discussion in the Tata Group chalet at the Farnborough air show on 23 July.
“No other business could really operate professionally or with a profit motive because you had this monster in the middle destroying value,” he states.
With Air India under Tata ownership and bringing AirAsia India and Vistara into its fold, India’s aviation market has matured, he suggests, meaning the country’s airlines – also including IndiGo and Akasa Air – can now concentrate on taking advantage of the huge market potential.
“There’s a lot of private capital that has come in, which is allowing investment in fleet, investment in product,” he says.
“There are more than 1,000 aircraft now in India’s aircraft order backlog and you are starting to see consolidation within the industry, which bodes well for stability, for profitability and ultimately investment and expansion.”
Air India is taking delivery of a new aircraft on average every six days, Wilson notes, as it seeks to tap the growth opportunity. The widebody market is particularly ripe for growth, he says, highlighting the fact that India’s carriers emerged from the pandemic with fewer than 50 widebody aircraft in service.
That lack of local capacity means that the Middle Eastern connectors in particular have a strong Indian presence, and Wilson suggests it would be better for India if local carriers took more of the market, bringing greater value to the local economy.
He also says that even in point-to-point markets there are huge opportunities for Air India, given the local market is so underserved.
Indeed, it is difficult to overstate thae expansion potential, Wilson says.
“To call India a growth market is a gross understatement,” he states.
“It’s already the third largest domestic market in the world for aviation – it’s growing at a rate of 10% annual growth.
“There is a huge middle class up and coming and a much more affluent population.”
Amid that dynamic, Wilson uses data from China – aviation’s last big growth market – to demonstrate how the coming years might play out.
“The propensity for Indians to travel is about where China was 20 years, which if you look at per-capita GDP is also where China was 20 years ago,” he says.
“And if you take China’s current data it reflects a 10 times increase.
“So the opportunities for aviation in India are massive.”
