(June 27): Two and a half years after SpiceJet was forced to ground its entire fleet on its inability to pay a mere US$2.2 million ($3.1 million) in fuel bills, the budget airline has become the world’s best-performing airline stock -- with US$26 billion in plane orders to boot.

The company’s co-founder and Chairman Ajay Singh has played the white knight, injecting capital, cutting loss-making routes and aggressively adding capacity in one of the world’s fastest growing markets. To top it all off, crude prices are staying low.

For investors, that’s been a winning formula: SpiceJet shares are the best performers on a Bloomberg Intelligence index of airline stocks this year. The stock is up 124% in 2017 and has gained more than 800% since the company’s near-demise in December 2014, giving SpiceJet a market value of US$1.2 billion.

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