Wannabe,
While I agree management and ego has much to due with the problems with Indian airlines, I think you would agree the government does nothing but kick them when they are down.
Yes the airport authorities of India can charge what the want for fees, but they have many streams of revenue and it doesn't seem smart to raise fees on the fiscally poor performing airlines which are the reason the other revenue streams exist.
Politicians in India always find a way to line there pockets. You know the bids for those airports done by private contractors are most likely over bid and kickbacks given for the contract as is one of the usual tactics. Not enough tracking by the public into where the money is going in public projects.
Indigo is interesting because they don't have to give financials to the public. They are 49 percent owned by a US company and who knows what kind of sweetheart deal they have with airbus. JetBlue made much money it's first five years while it enjoyed no payments and maintanence costs, but when that deal ended they started having to work like the rest to survive.
One of the biggest money suckers is government red tape and the insufficient atc system which is the responsibility of the government. I wish I would have tracked the amount of holds, orbits, delay vectors, min clean speeds and turn it into a cost to the airlines figure. I can't tell you how many times I watched guys sitting on the ground completly unproductive because they had some medical issue that had nothing to do with affecting flight. How many guys sit on the ground because the dgca has lost their paperwork again...
it's the perfect storm of incompetence, ego, and corruption that will keep a country of very nice people on their knees for many years to come.