Mar. 1—NEW DELHI — India's youngest airline Akasa Air will hire 300 pilots over the next 12 months, Founder and Chief Executive Officer Vinay Dube said.
The six-month-old airline has recently inducted its 18th aircraft ahead of its estimated timeline of March 2023. The total order book for Akasa stands at 72 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
Dube reiterated that the airline will place a "3 digit aircraft order" before the end of this year.
The airline started scheduled commercial flights on 7 August 2022 and currently operates more than 700 weekly flights across 14 domestic destinations including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Agartala, Goa, Vizag, Pune, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Varanasi.
The airline's largest hub is based in Bengaluru with 36 daily flights from Bengaluru, and as a result, Akasa Air is the third largest domestic carrier in the city. The airline is optimistic that it will soon be the second largest carrier from Bengaluru.
"We are forecasted to achieve an average of 100 flights per day, starting 10th of March 2023 — the first time ever that a new airline in India has managed to breach the daily 100 flights mark at such a short span of time. With this, we will also offer 700 flights per week, well within 200 days of operations. We are on track to receive our 20th aircraft this summer and remain focussed on establishing a strong national presence, providing linkages from metro to tier 2 and tier 3 cities across the country," Praveen Iyer, Co-Founder, and Chief Commercial Officer, Akasa Air said.
The airline also joined Air India in allowing pets on board from November 2022 and so far, 250 domesticated cats and dogs have travelled on its network.
The airline also plans to invest heavily in its digital ecosystem with enhancements to the web and mobile app centred around user convenience and personalisation.
"We have achieved our target of inducting 20 aircraft before time," Dube said. Over the next four years, the airline is expected to add 54 additional aircraft, taking its total fleet size to 72 aircraft.
As per Jan data from Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Akasa is the seventh largest airline in India with a market share of 2.8% after IndiGo, Air India, Vistara, Go FIRST, AirAsia India and SpiceJet. IndiGo is the largest domestic airline with a market share of 54.6%.
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