Apparently the editor of a campaigning weekly Indian newspaper is fond of telling foreigners: “Everything you think you know about India is correct. But the opposite is also true.” To be sure India offers considerable potential for the future. In the 1990s, as the government of the time drove the liberalisation (to some extent) of the Indian economy, business boomed as globalisation took a firm foothold. McKinsey management consultancy in 2007 forecast that India will have the fifth largest consumer market by 2025, with consumption quadrupling. India’s biggest companies—Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance, Infosys, Wipro, Ranbaxy Laboratories and others—are all world-class businesses. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has also shown that the potential rate of GDP per capita growth is some 7 per cent a year, which is almost five times higher than it was from 1950-1980. Lastly, of course, it was the Indian software houses that prompted Thomas Friedman to write his book The World Is Flat.

Set against these impressive statistics, India has become a beacon of likely future demand expansion for all original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) involved in both business and commercial aviation. Many reports were freely circulated during 2007-2008 of the hundred or more business aircraft that had been sold in India at the height of the market, but the reality for business aviation was, as is usually the case, one of slower incremental growth as can be seen below.

Only in the case of the larger commercial market did business truly boom for the OEMs. I recall an executive from Boeing telling me during the Hyderabad Air Show in 2008 that some 11-12 commercial airliners were being delivered to India every month. The result—over-capacity, underutilisation, large losses and consolidation—was an inevitable market development. In business aviation, the growth has certainly notched up several gears. In the past, I would have said a good year for Cessna sales in India was maybe 3-4 new jets a year. Now, that might well be 6-8 aircraft.

I have held the view for some time that India’s growth path would not be unlike that of Brazil where, in Cessna’s case, it has taken us some 30 years to build a fleet in excess of 200 Citations and an overall market share slightly in excess of 50 per cent. India currently shares many of Brazil’s original natural inhibitors to growth which, with the passage of time, have significantly lessened in Brazil.

These restrictions are well known, such as excessive bureaucracy for the importation of aircraft; restrictions on the export of hard currency; a lack of business aviation infrastructure and resources including airports, fixed base operators and qualified pilots; tax issues such as the re-imposition of counter veiling tax in India in March 2007; restrictive operational considerations (that is, slot limitations at major airports which are slewed toward favoring the commercial airliners); and restrictions at the more typical secondary market airfields that are the natural home of the business jet. To that end, when I met (Civil Aviation) Minister (Praful) Patel at Hyderabad last year with the US delegation, I found his open acknowledgment of the importance that business aviation would have in the development of the Indian economy very refreshing. It bodes well for the future.

One very interesting paradox of Indian business aviation is that the 28 states as part of the government are big users of business aviation, having recognised the benefits that come with the use of these products, such as ease of movement, time-saving and security aspects. The private sector still has some way to go to catch up with them but I have no doubt it will. The government sector is then a large consumer of business aircraft and therefore a strong sector for future potential sales, particularly given the more recent trend for moving to jet transportation from propeller.

So we have the apparent contradiction in India of rapid growth in the economy but slower than expected growth in business aviation. However, over time, the natural bureaucratic inhibitors to growth mentioned above will slowly give way to a more open economy which will continue to spur growth in business aviation. Ask me again in five years what a bad Indian market is, sales-wise, for Cessna and I will likely say six to eight aircraft a year and a good market 12 to 16 aircraft annually. I believe India truly offers that potential, and maybe more. However, despite all the newspaper reports at the height of the last pre-‘credit crunch’ boom, we should not expect a sudden and dramatic expansion in demand (nor should we in China either).

Nonetheless, I remain more optimistic about India’s enhanced growth potential in business aviation over the medium term than I am about the Chinese market. By 2025, I would expect India to be in the top 10 individual countries for the purchase of business aviation as globalisation resumes and drives the spread of wealth across the planet (and along with it the use of business aircraft by those very private sector businesses pioneering a new stage in the world’s economic development). India will certainly be in the middle of that development as it takes its place as a major world industrial power. So, no quick fixes, but incremental change and a call of: “Steady as she goes!” are the orders of the day. The horizon certainly looks very promising.