Akasa Air to spread its wings to Southeast Asia

NEW DELHI: Akasa Air, which has a 5% market share in India's domestic air traffic, is planning to ramp up expansion in this financial year after a year of slow growth. This will include the launch of flights to Southeast Asia, a top destination for outbound Indian travellers.

The airline that flies a fleet solely of Boeing planes has faced challenges in expanding operations amid an aircraft shortage.

"The good news is the worst is behind the supply. The constraints seem to have been addressed to a large extent. Boeing had a peculiar issue and that's resolved, which is good news," Akasa chief commercial officer Praveen Iyer told ET.

"As a result, we, it appears, will be on track for more deliveries this year and we are happy with how the deliveries are scheduled for the rest of the year." The airline, he said, is looking to expand available seat kilometres by 30-40%. This metric shows the passenger-carrying capacity of an airline.

The airline in 2022 placed an initial order for 72 Boeing 737 Max aircraft and later added four more planes to the order. In January, it followed it up with an order for another 150 aircraft of the same variant. But the deliveries got delayed, with a slowdown in Boeing's production amid increased scrutiny from regulators, airlines and lawmakers following a January incident when a door plug blew off a plane.

Iyer said the airline will aggressively expand on international routes and launch flights to Southeast Asia soon.

"We have been consistently adding capacity on the international markets. Over the next several months you will see us making some announcements about addition of flights to Far East destinations," Iyer said.

Iyer said the two new airports in Delhi and Mumbai - Noida and Navi Mumbai - will be a catalyst for growth of flight connections from India's two largest cities.

"Two of the most critical markets have been slot constrained for quite some time now. I see it as a proxy to Delhi which has been capacity constrained and the other airport is Navi Mumbai, which has been a proxy to Mumbai which has been capacity constrained as well. So, considering that there are new spaces opening up at Delhi and Mumbai, we will see much more increase in growth," Iyer said.