AI privatisation heralds end to taxpayer-fuelled ops; deleterious effect on industry fares, salaries

When full-service airline Jet Airways wound up operations in April 2019, it was a result of several triggers coming to boil — systemic factors like surging crude prices and an adverse foreign exchange rate; reasons relating to industry’s evolution like growth of low-cost flying, in addition to poor decision making by Jet Airways’ management and promoters. But an underlying factor was Air India.

For much of its lifetime, Jet Airways competed directly with Air India in the premium segment, and near-endless supply of taxpayer money at regular intervals for the state-run carrier meant Jet and other Indian airlines had to contend against an airline that constantly had its losses subsidised.