India, Dec. 7 -- For the past three decades, India's aviation industry has symbolised both the ambition to fly and the compulsion to fall. After economic liberalisation in the 1990s, the era of private airlines began. For the first time, people saw air travel break free from royal luxury and enter the reach of the common middle class.

But this story was never simple. While state-run companies like Indian Airlines and later Air India remained stuck in losses due to corruption, poor management and political interference, private brands such as Kingfisher, Jet Airways, Sahara Airlines and others gradually sank under bankruptcy, debt, irregularities and investigations after an initial period of glamour.

Today, when IndiGo once considered th...