Neelu Khatri, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President International of Akasa
Credit: Linkedin/Neelu Khatri
Bengaluru: Akasa Air, India’s newest airline, announced its first international route from Bengaluru on Friday, connecting the city to Abu Dhabi under a codeshare agreement with Etihad Airways.
Recently, the airline has had several run-ins with India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the latest being in January this year.
Neelu Khatri, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President International of Akasa spoke about taking in-stride the challenges the airline is facing due to regulations.
She also remarked on India’s air cargo potential and Akasa’s growth plans in a conversation with DH’s Anushree Pratap on the sidelines of the press meet. Edited excerpts:
Akasa Air in two years has managed to have the highest load factor amongst all the Indian carriers. What are your expansion plans for 2025, in terms of fleet orders, destinations, and deliveries?
We have completed 31 months of our operation, and have 23 domestic and 5 international as of now. The growth is going to be absolutely humongous for us, for the simple reason that we have 199 aircrafts more to come in the next 7 years. We are going to deploy them everywhere, both domestic and international. We are looking at creating an airline which will be in at least the top 30 globally.
Our next international destination is a very critical business decision based on many factors. Do we have the traffic rights between the two countries? Do we have a business case? What is the resource allocation for it? You also need the approvals from that government, that airport, and so on.
How are you dealing with delays in delivery by Boeing? Longer term, as the airline expands, will you stick to them or also consider Airbus?
We have a signed order - 199 aircrafts more to come. We are extremely happy with the partnership with Boeing. A little delivery delay here and there is really not making too much of a difference in our growth plans. It even caters to the break that you have to take in between growth so that you stabilise yourself, get the processes, hire the right talent.
Industry players have emphasised on the untapped potential when it comes to air cargo in India. Your take? Would Akasa ever consider having a pure cargo subsidiary?
The fact that we have been able to get very good cargo going on our aircraft in the belly and we have been able to fill it up is in itself a very good example of the fact that there is an opportunity to develop.
We have done more than 91,000 tonnes for ourselves. We will continue to work on the same aircraft to see how we take a very strong mix of passengers and cargo and get that to be maximised.
The cargo team that we have has brought in a lot of processes on delivering; cargo is a pretty tough business to manage. You are handling fresh, valuable cargo. All of this is very crucial and difficult to handle. The first challenge that we had was to put a team in place that is able to deliver.
Akasa, like other carriers, has been under scrutiny by the DGCA. Would you say that it has been challenging to keep up with regulations? Is there a need for less strict regulations in India?
The second answer is a definite no. The nature of the aviation business is such that you are dealing with public safety. So having more and more regulations is actually good for any carrier. It's always good to have the rules when you are playing the game.
If you have to face challenges on certain regulations, we will do that. Yes, we faltered into many places. We took that in our stride. We love to get inputs from DGCA and the ministry on where we go wrong. We are very quick to go back and accept that.