Welcome to Vande Bharat Airlines

New Delhi: The recent Indigo Airlines catastrophe, with deep-rooted socio-economic implications, may well provoke the incubation of Vande Bharat Airlines. In other words, set a credible context for Nationalisation V2, where aviation and certain key essential services are brought under ‘professional’ state management, to smooth the continuity of our ever-evolving national juggernaut. 

Union-led strikes are certainly not new news for airlines and are common in Western economies as well. Germany’s poster boy, Lufthansa, is constantly held hostage by pilots, whether through threats or actual disruptions.  

In March 2025, public-sector employees, ground staff, and security workers at 13 German airports coordinated a 24-hour strike, leading to the cancellation of 1,054 out of 1,116 scheduled takeoffs and landings. This year, so far, there have been at least ten strikes worldwide, involving the world’s leading carriers. The luminaries include the French ATC Controllers, Air Canada flight attendants and KLM Ground Crew. 

In most, if not all, matters, the provocation is union-driven, with disruptions driven by the inability to forge a working equilibrium with management. The Indigo scenario, while still unfolding, is definitely driven by deliberate inaction by management, while responding to a Government policy. Whether inadvertent, tactical, strategic or diabolical, the jury is still out, but it is clearly an act of commission and not omission, in accounting parlance. Thereby, both avoidable and predictable, in terms of the carnage in the terminals. 

In spite of our dramatic advancements as an economy, a nagging concern gets reinforced. The core ‘public’ services, divested by the erstwhile PSU to non-state actors, perhaps need a fresh dose of state ownership, albeit in a new age version. Shedding the repressive airs of the Air Corporations Act of 1953 ( Nationalisation V1) and incorporating new-age technology-driven and governance-enabled processes and practices, in line with the JAM Trinity enablers. To protect the dynamic interests of a 1.4 billion citizenry, inclusively benefitting from the advantages of affluence. 

Welcome, then, to the world of Vande Bharat Airlines. A state-managed fleet of Plain Jane single aisle aircraft, whether Airbus, Boeing or the Chinese COMAC C-919 is a matter of tender detailing. Under the auspices of a JV with the manufacturer directly, driven by the philosophy of UDAN ( Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik). A Vande Bharat-inspired service culture, focused only on essentials, with no ambitions for any luxury benchmarking. Thereby, no pressure on lounge services or in-flight meals but simply a service run smoothly, as a modern state entity. 

It needs to be appreciated that the new age nationalised organisations are in no way comparable to their Nehruvian peers, aided largely by technology adoption. Especially citizenry services like Passport, Aadhar, Lok Adalats, PAN, ITR, GST, IRCTC and even the controversial SIR mechanism. Smart, efficient and sincerely customer-focused, they bear no baggage of the erstwhile Air India- Indian Airlines calamity. A catastrophic failure, caused by inept management policies and an ill-advised competitive framework, wherein they tried to be premium and popular in one unsustainable and incompetent hodgepodge. 

Simply put, a country as diverse and complicated as ours still cannot trust a private-only play for ‘hygiene’ necessities. As proven equally by Air India’s opportunism, conveniently shedding its ‘trust’ halo for the lucre of a few extra bucks. There are some thought-provoking benchmarks across industries. Total private infrastructure accounts for about 62% of India’s healthcare ecosystem, while a rapidly growing PPP mode is helping build a quality-affordability bridge. A government-subsidised pharmacy, Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), provides high-quality generic medicines at significantly lower prices (50-90% less than branded drugs) through dedicated stores called Janaushadhi Kendras, and has many state-level peers. 

Public Sector Banks (PSBs) still hold the majority share in India's banking sector for loans and deposits while losing ground to Private Sector Banks, which are rapidly gaining share, especially in recent years (FY2024-2025). In the Insurance sector, the public sector still retains 30% of the market share, in spite of rapid private growth. Even in the competitive app-cab sector, driven by Uber, Ola and Rapido, Government entities like Namma Yatri and Yatri Sathi are proving to be viable competition.

Only in the ‘softer’ arenas is there a comprehensive private sector dominance, with the capabilities to cripple normal services. E-commerce, Quick Commerce, Swiggy-Zomato nexus are the notables amongst them. Quite capable of crippling festive and functional ecosystems if they choose to act up. But surely, it is significantly less damaging than civil aviation, the abiding adhesive for domestic travel in spite of an ever-developing rail and road alliance. 

While it sounds like avoidable De Ja Vu, Vande Bharat Airlines ( state-run) may well be a sensible way to plug the needs of advancing tomorrows and indeed, the prolific todays. India is an unprecedented use case in national development, and mature yet productive state machinery is needed for the essentials to run. As a foundation and not a deterrent for growth.