Vijay Mallya Responsible for Kingfisher Airlines' Trouble?

His troubles have coincided this year with India's own slow growth, high inflation and corruption scandals that threaten the entrepreneurial self-confidence of an Asian economic juggernaut that likes to see itself taking on the world.

Like other billionaires including Mukesh Ambani and his $1 billion Mumbai home, Mallya fascinates Indians aspiring for wealth after generations of forced frugality and jars with others in a country where around half live in poverty.

"While he was doing well, he was signifying the resurgence of India. To a very large part of the middle class, he was what everyone wanted to be," said Prahlad Kakkar, a well-known advertising executive. "He was the symbol of new India - flamboyant, high-risk, wealthy and not ashamed of it. Now when everyone is tightening their belts .. there is an eerie feeling that he's irresponsible."

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Kingfisher has become one of the main casualties of high fuel costs and a fierce price war between a handful of airlines, which between them have ordered hundreds of aircraft for delivery over the next decade in an ambitious bet on the future.

Rising crude prices, a depreciating rupee and cut-throat competition have eroded the finances of his airline - named after his famous brand of Indian beer - despite industry passenger growth of nearly 20 percent this year.

The 55-year-old Mallya, with his Branson-style flowing silver hair, is chairman of United Breweries (Holdings), a conglomerate with interests as diverse as aviation, breweries, biotechnology and real estate. The group has annual sales of more than $4 billion

But it is his ownership of Kingfisher Airlines, which accounts for nearly one in five flights in India, that perhaps made Mallya most famous. He helped transform India's airline business by focusing on services like good food, personal screens on domestic flights and airline ushers who attend to customers as they arrive at the airport.

"He altogether brought a different level of service into the domestic skies," said Kapil Kaul, chief executive for the Indian subcontinent and Middle East at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), an aviation consulting firm.

THE MAN, THE BRAND

On each flight, Mallya appears on a recorded message on the inflight entertainment system, boasting of hand-picking each of the airline's hostesses who "have been instructed to treat you in the same way as if you were a guest in my own home".

Worth $1.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, his lifestyle fascinated many Indians, including the nearly 700,000 that follow him on Twitter.

Mallya flies around the world, dining with football stars and Formula One drivers and appearing with models on photo shoots in locales like Mauritius, continuously name-dropping the rich and famous on his Twitter feed. His 312-foot yacht, the Indian Empress cost almost $89 million.