Take a trip back in time. In fact as far back as the late 1930s when J.R.D. Tata became the first Indian to hold a private flying licence. Within a year, J.R.D. made his solo flight from Bombay to England, and by 1932 he set up Tata Airlines. It was only much later in 1998, that Vijaypat Singhania made another credible mark. Singhania also flew solo, in a micro-light plane from the UK to India in 22 days.

J.R.D., of course, was the Father of Indian Aviation. His Tata Airlines is today the flag carrier Air-India, which completes 75 years of operation this year. Singhania, on the other hand, recently lifted off on a hot air balloon to a height of 69,000 feet, breaking all earlier held records. "Being 67 won't stop me," he told us then. "There is a lot to do before age will catch up."

J.R.D. and Singhania are two of India's high profile aviators, yet aviation itself has failed to take off in the past. Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya, for instance, started UB Air in 1990, "but when regulation demanded that I operate as an air-taxi service I backed out", he says. Today Mallya is back in business, running the popular scheduled airliner Kingfisher Airlines. All planes from his earlier venture find place in a corporate fleet, his non-scheduled or private fleet of aircraft: an Airbus 320, a Boeing 727, a Gulfstream 3 and an HS125.

Mallya is, however, not the only one. "There are about 150 planes that belong to companies under the non-scheduled category," says Kapil Kaul, chief executive officer, of consultancy firm Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation (India). That's not impressive. Given that in America, West Asia and Europe, nearly 150,000 general aircraft crisscross the skies annually. And it's not just that. "In India nearly 40% of these are 20 to 25 years old," says Kaul.

Yet, examining past numbers is like looking through a narrow-focus lens. The growth of this business is directly linked to the state of the economy. With the economy now booming at 8-9 per cent annually, the shopping has begun, he adds.

contd on page 2...