Akasa Air's fleet expansion: Aiming for new destinations, increased frequencies

Akasa Air, India's youngest airline, is well-capitalized and plans to add 5-10 new destinations, including international routes, next year as it aims to maintain its position as the country's fastest-growing airline, CEO Vinay Dube said.

Positive Outlook Despite Aircraft Delivery Delays

Dube, in an interview , also projected an "incredibly bright" outlook for the next 30 years and said the delay in the delivery of one or two aircraft does not change the fundamentals of the airline's business or growth trajectory as it has built an extremely "strong and stable" platform.

Current Fleet and Market Share

The nearly two-and-a-half-year-old Rakesh Jhunjhunwala family-backed Akasa Air currently has a fleet of 27 Boeing 737 Max planes and commanded a 4.6 per cent market share in CY2024. "It is no secret that Boeing has been delayed in its delivery stream. No secret about that, either from us or Boeing or any other airline whether one or two aircraft were late or not, is not something that changes the fundamentals of our business. It does not change the growth trajectory," Dube said in response to a question on aircraft deliveries.

Guidance on Deliveries Halted

However, he said that Akasa has stopped giving guidance on deliveries because "the story changes focus from Akasa being the fastest growing airline in India or the world, to two aircraft were late."

Akasa Air currently has 199 aircraft on order from a total order of 226 placed in three tranches of 72, 4 and 150 aircraft between November 2021 and January 2024. All these aircraft as per schedule are to be delivered to the airline by 2032.

Recent Delivery Challenges

While between June-December 2022, the airline inducted 14 planes in the fleet and another 8 in 2023, the number of deliveries came down drastically to just 4 planes last year, owing to supply-chain issues. Stating that the airline is satisfied with where it stands currently, with almost a 300 per cent growth in 2022-23 and 2023-24, he said, "the outlook for the future is incredibly bright. For the next 30 years, I think we live in a country that has this amazing economic growth engine that underpins everything that India does."

Plans for New Destinations

"Going forward, we continue to expect a very robust degree of growth... We hope to add 5-10 new destinations, a combination of domestic and international destinations next year," he said. But an airline does not add 5-10 international destinations or plan (it) unless it is expecting a sizable number of aircraft, he said.

Financial Stability and Profitability Path

Akasa Air chief also said that the airline is well on track, if not ahead, of its financial plans as far as a path to profitability is concerned but did not share any timeline as to when the airline was expecting to be profitable.

According to him, 60 per cent of the airline's pilots have started clocking flying hours and the remaining cockpit crew and the vast majority of the remaining ones will also start flying by the end of the year adding, "It is only dependent on our delivery stream of aircraft."

(Except for the headline, nothing has been changed by All India News Network in the PTI copy.)