Why India is so important to Middle East recovery

As the true green shoots of recovery begin to show we look at how some old links will prosper as travel restarts in earnest. For Middle Eastern markets the Indian sub-continent will be vital.Special guest for this week’s programme is Sanjiv Kapoor, who is now senior advisor at global consulting firm Alton Aviation. Sanjiv has been a key figure in India’s airline industry having been chief strategy and commercial officer of Vistara – the joint venture airline between TATA and Singapore Airlines, and was previously chief operating officer for successful low cost carrier SpiceJet. Kapoor tells Alan Peaford that in some ways, India been one of the “proxy home markets” for the Gulf ‘Big Three’ carriers and Indian carriers have not been able to compete very well. But in this in-depth interview he explains why India’s low cost carriers are positioned to compete very well against the Middle East’s LCCs, especially with more carriers joining the competitive market in the Gulf.Also in this programme, MRO editor Chuck Grieve steps out from the comfort of the workshop into the front office, where he looks at how one company, Web Manuals, is working on removing paper from the aviation world and catching up with other industries on digitisation.Web Manuals CEO Martin Lidgard, explains how the company is also involved in an exciting CSR programme in Uganda to develop young people – especially girls – to achieve education levels that will benefit the industry and the continent in the future.Also, all the week’s top news headlines from the Times Aerospace newsdesk