There is this story of two cats fighting over a piece of cake. As they fight, a monkey appears on the scene and offers to divide it equally. He first slices it into two, but one slice appears bigger. He bites off a bit from the bigger piece, and now the smaller piece appears bigger. Whenever once piece of the cake appears bigger, the monkey himself takes a bite, and soon there is no cake left for the two cats themselves.
The story of Indian aviation is beginning to resemble this story of cats losing out to the monkeys.
The sector has been run into the ground by players who were so busy fighting that they used (or allowed) the monkeys – usually politicians, the regulators and canny global airlines – to destroy the cake itself.
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh’s comments on the AirAsia proposal to start a domestic airline with 49 percent stake (with the Tatas as financial investors with a 30 percent) confirms the suspicion that ministers have largely been playing monkeys to the resident and non-resident cats of the aviation sector.
22/02/13 R Jagannathan/FirstPost.com
