India, Sept. 18 -- Fortunes in civil aviation swing more than in most other sectors, given that it is vulnerable to any number of factors, including external ones. There could be a billionaire in the cockpit one day, and before you know it, they would have lost it all.

Yet, perhaps, no other sector allows players such latitude in shaping their trajectory. Start with the right intent and the right people, and a few wrong twists and turns will be forgiven and forgotten. Both Jet Airways (until its closure) and IndiGo, India's two private-sector success stories in civil aviation, have been through many twists and turns but both had the right intent and the right people at the helm almost all through. In the Indian context, founders and owne...