South Asia: Traffic up, losses down, but fundamental reforms remain incomplete

The last few years have been without doubt some of the most challenging in India's aviation history. Over-capacity, high input costs, intense competition and a negative policy and regulatory environment conspired to threaten the viability of virtually the entire aviation value chain.
India's airlines alone have lost more than USD10 billion combined since FY2009. Airline debt stands at around USD11.9 billion, rising to close to USD14 billion if liabilities to vendors are included. At an industry level airline debt is now equivalent to 120% of airline revenue, and in the case of some carriers such as Air India, it is more than twice revenue.