The founder
Ayush
Jitendrakumar
Baldaniya
Founder, AJB Aviation Ventures. Developing a venture around a long-term view of what Indian aviation could become.
In his words
Aviation has never been simply an industry to me.
Aviation has been a long-standing part of my family's story. My father built his career as a pilot, and that connection shaped my interest in aviation from an early stage. Over time, that interest developed into a broader ambition: to understand the industry deeply enough to explore how a new Indian airline could be built properly.
AJB began with a question: what would an Indian airline look like if the passenger experience mattered alongside operating discipline and financial sustainability? Answering it requires more than an interest in aircraft. It requires understanding capital, regulation, fleet economics, operations, technology, people and the commercial decisions that determine whether an airline can sustain itself.
That is the focus of the work behind AJB today. The venture is being developed through research, strategy, modelling and structured planning, with the intention of bringing in experienced aviation professionals as the organisation progresses.
The aim is not to build around one person's experience, but to create the foundation for an organisation that can eventually be led and operated by people with deep industry experience across every critical function.
Ayush Jitendrakumar Baldaniya · Founder
Background
How the founder
approaches the work.
Building an airline requires a combination of analytical thinking, research, long-term planning and the ability to question assumptions. Those principles shape the work behind AJB.
Structured thinking
Breaking a complex aviation problem into its commercial, operational and regulatory components before deciding how to approach it.
Evidence before assumption
Using market data, industry research and financial modelling to test ideas rather than treating initial assumptions as conclusions.
Long-term orientation
Developing AJB in stages, with the intention of building the right organisational, financial and professional foundations before operations.
On the founder's role
The objective is a venture that outgrows its founder.
A venture at this stage carries total key-person risk, and pretending otherwise would be the first bad decision. The intended long-term role is founding vision, strategic direction and board-level accountability — with operational leadership held by people who have spent careers in flight operations, safety, engineering and finance.
Aviation does not make exceptions for founders. AJB is being designed around the assumption that professional systems and experienced leadership must eventually carry the organisation beyond any one individual.
What comes next
Formation,
advisers, capital.
The immediate work is to convert research into a formal structure: incorporation, founding governance, and the assembly of experienced aviation advisers willing to challenge the thesis properly. Capital follows that, not the other way round.
See the roadmap→Open invitation
If you have worked in airline operations, safety, engineering, network planning, revenue management or aviation finance, AJB would genuinely rather hear your objections than your encouragement.
Get in touch→What should flying in India feel like?