India’s civil aviation ministry is playing see-saw with low-cost carriers. And their customers.

In the span of a week, it went from telling airlines they couldn’t charge customers whatever they liked for the majority of seats to scrapping all caps on airfares. A pair of seemingly contradictory directives that may imminently reshape the country’s aviation landscape.

On 18 March, the ministry directed that at least 60% of the seats on every flight must be free to book. This was in line with a 24 February order from the Director General of Civil Aviation, the aviation........

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