Mint Explainer: Akasa Air turns 1. What now?

According to the current regulatory framework, an airline needs to complete five years of operations or must have a fleet of at least 20 aircraft to be eligible to fly overseas. Mint takes a look at where is Akasa headed:

The journey so far

The idea of Akasa Air took birth during the year 2020 when industry veteran Vinay Dube approached stock market investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. Dube, who comes with experience across American Airlines, Sabre Inc., Delta Air Lines, Jet Airways and Go First, wanted to start a dependable and affordable airline in India. Simultaneously, Aditya Ghosh, former president of India’s largest airline IndiGo, also got on board and the airline received a no-objection certificate from the Indian civil aviation regulator in October 2021 to launch flights.

The airline’s core team includes sector experts with aviation experience. The current team comprises executives from erstwhile Jet Airways such as co-founder and chief marketing and experience officer Belson Coutinho and co-founder, senior vice-president aircraft acquisition, financing and insurance Bhavin Joshi. In fact, co-founder and chief commercial officer Praveen Iyer has had stints at Jet Airways as well as Go First.

The team also includes ex-IndiGo executives such as Priya Mehra as chief legal, regulatory and strategic relations officer and Ankur Goel as chief financial officer. The core team also has Ritu Sinha as head of human resources whose last stint was at Vistara airline.

The team also has ex-Go First executives such as Anand Srinivasan as co-founder and chief information officer. Akasa’s team also includes Neelu Khatri, an ex-Indian Air Force Wing Commander as co-founder and senior vice president-head of operations with stints at KPMG and Honeywell, among others.

Akasa operations

Currently, the airline’s fleet includes 20 aircraft with another 56 in the pipeline. The airline is the first in Asia to have added a 737-8-200 variant of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which can seat 200 passengers. The total orderbook includes 23 B737-8s and 53 B737-8-200 airplanes and the airline has chosen CFM-LEAP engines for the 76 Boeing aircraft.

Akasa has said that it plans to place a three-digit aircraft order by the end of 2023.

As of now, Akasa Air connects 16 destinations including Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Lucknow, Goa, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Bagdogra, Kochi and Guwahati, Pune, Agartala, and Bhubaneswar.

Future flights

As per industry experts, Akasa Air is among the few airlines in India which has been able to maintain a consistent increase in its capacity since it commenced flights despite global supply chain issues impacting the aviation industry. In fact, it has surpassed SpiceJet to become the fifth largest airline in India after IndiGo, Air India, Vistara and AirAsia India with a 4.9% market share as per domestic air traffic data for June.

The airline is soon expected to tap the high-yield international segment and has eyes on Singapore, the Middle East and the Gulf region, including Dammam, Qatar and Oman, as possible destinations for the launch.

While Akasa suffered a setback within a week of its launch with the passing away of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Dube has maintained that the airline is a long-term investment for Rare Enterprises and the Rakesh Jhunjhunwala family.

"The Indian aviation market is seeing a steady growth with record number of flyers. The exit of Go First gives a wider platform to any airline which has capacity to put in. In the international segment, the government wants more Indian airlines to put in flights. Overall, Akasa seems to have the ingredients in place to create a space for itself and if it can maintain a strong funding pipeline, it can prove to be a strong competitor in the budget carriers segment," an industry expert said.