Round trip: Six years after a revival, SpiceJet is back where it started

Six years after a revival, the question being asked is whether India's second largest private airline, SpiceJet, is back where it started

In Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass, Alice and the Red Queen run and run, but in the end find themselves at the same spot. The Red Queen’s race is an analogy that many feel applies perfectly to India’s second largest private airline, SpiceJet. Six years after a turnaround, scripted by the company’s Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh, people in the sector are asking whether he’s back to where he’d started.

In 2014-15, when Singh took charge of SpiceJet, the airline had almost Rs 2,300 crore to pay in dues right away. Lessors were re-possessing its airplanes left, right and