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Teamwork
They will succeed or fail as a team. Each one of them must respect their colleagues regardless of their rank, and they must work together to ensure their mutual success.

Accountability
Each one of them will be held accountable for the successful execution of their duties, commitments and obligations, and they will strive to lead by example.

Why Aviation?

What gladdened Dr. Vijay Mallya must have been a Cabinet decision on Wednesday, October 20, 2004, which hiked the permitted foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in domestic airlines to 49% from the existing 40%. This move is expected to help fledgling airlines like Kingfisher and Air Deccan. Jet and Sahara lobbied till the last, some political parties (leftists) tried to muddy the waters, but the skies were opening up and Dr. Mallya had cause for cheer. The bogey of national security concerns raised by the Jet-Sahara cartel failed. More than the 9% hike, the decision also signaled to domestic airlines and foreign investors that the government was serious on aviation reform.

Starting a low cost airline is not the most difficult part, because to start a low cost service with nation wide operations,

• Assuming that the airplanes are leased the cost is typically between $20-40mn; depending on the scale of operations (a full scale carrier will need investment of around $70-80mn).

• A regional service can be started at a much lower cost - around $10-15mn.

• Low cost carriers can break even in a year or two or at most three.

• New airlines typically have a major cost advantage, especially for labor, over established (mostly state-owned carriers like Indian Airlines or Air China).

• Air transport is the obvious solution for mobility, if fares can be kept low (as compared to train fares).

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* Contributed by -
Manasi Panigrahi,
Pursuing MBA, Batch of 2006,
ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad.