An Air India aircraft Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- India reached a milestone at the end of last year when it overtook China as the world’s most populous nation. But that explosive growth is hardly reflected in the size of its commercial aviation fleet. Today the entire country has only about 700 aircraft—fewer than United Airlines Holdings Inc. alone—and just 50 widebody jets to transport its increasingly mobile 1.41 billion people.