From tempo driver to airline owner: How Shravan Kumar Vishwakarma built Shankh Air

India loves its startup stories, but few are as striking as this one. Shravan Kumar Vishwakarma, 35, from Kanpur, has gone from driving a tempo on busy city streets to owning one of India’s newest airlines. That’s not just ambition, it’s grit turned into wings.Seven years ago, Vishwakarma’s life couldn’t have been more ordinary. He was hustling as a loader and tempo driver, making just enough to get by. But a mix of determination, small wins in steel, cement, and transport, and a clear vision for the future slowly set him on a path that most could only dream of: launching an airline from Uttar Pradesh.Shankh Air is set to take off in early 2026, after getting its No Objection Certificate from the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The airline plans to start with three Airbus planes, connecting Lucknow to Delhi, Mumbai, and other major cities. “This is just the beginning,” Vishwakarma told reporters, the kind of energy you get from someone used to building everything from scratch.He grew up in a middle-class household in Kanpur. School? Not really his thing. “I wasn’t a keen student,” he admits. “But the city was my classroom. The streets, the traffic, the buses, the tempos - I saw it all. That’s where I learned life.” He even drove autos with friends and tried a few small businesses, most of which didn’t work out. But he never let the failures stop him, they just became lessons along the way. 2014 was the turning point. He got into the cement trade, which opened doors to the TMT rebar industry. Slowly, he expanded into cement, mining, and transport, building a fleet of trucks that gave him both credibility and the capital to dream bigger. Four years ago, the idea of starting an airline struck him.“Once I thought about it, I had to learn everything - the rules, the NOC process, how the system worked. It was a lot, but little by little, the idea took shape,” he told PTI.For someone from a modest background, even imagining owning an airline was once unthinkable. “Growing up, just earning a living felt like enough. Dreaming beyond that? That felt almost impossible,” he says. But Vishwakarma has always had one clear goal: to make flying accessible to everyone.“An airplane is just a way to get somewhere, like a bus or a tempo. It shouldn’t feel like it’s only for a few people,” he says. That inclusive vision is what makes Shankh Air different, and why people are watching.From the streets of Kanpur to the runway of a brand-new airline, Vishwakarma’s journey is proof that starting small, keeping at it, and dreaming big can really take you places most of us can only imagine.