Akasa Air to add 800 employees and operate internationally – ET HospitalityWorld

The bottom Air, India’s newest airline, plans to add up to 800 new workers by the end of this fiscal year as it prepares to launch international services, Chief Executive Vinay dubbing he told Bloomberg News.

The low-cost airline, which began flying commercially in 2022, is considering expanding its network to the Middle East, Southeast Asia and other parts of South Asia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, while maintaining single-class configuration on routes. Dube said in an interview on Thursday.

Akasa, which means sky, employs about 3,000 people and controls 4.9 percent of India’s aviation market, where competition is fierce and many airlines have gone bankrupt. The cemetery includes former tycoon Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher airlines and jet airlines India. Right now, Go Airlines India is not flying as it battles insolvency, and SpiceJet is also under pressure after a series of losses.

Covid caused chaos for carriers in India and elsewhere, but demand for travel is picking up strongly. International traffic to and from India should grow at an annual rate of 13 percent over the next 10 years, up from 8 percent on record, with Indian airlines increasing their share “significantly,” HSBC analysts wrote in a report, including Achal Kumar and Ali Naqvi. note thursday. Passenger traffic in India is above pre-pandemic levels despite fares being 30 percent higher, they said.

Akasa is not alone in stepping up hiring efforts, market leader IndiGo and Air India plan to hire thousands more employees, and both have highly successful orders for hundreds of Airbus SE aircraft and Boeing Co.

Dube is finalizing an order for narrow-body jets that he says will be in the triple digits in terms of number of planes, with an announcement likely before the end of the year. Akasa ordered four more Boeing 737-8 planes last month, increasing its order book to 76 planes for delivery in March 2027.

Akasa will take delivery of its 20th Boeing in a few days, meeting the government’s minimum fleet requirement for an airline to start overseas operations, Dube said. He said the airline is “well capitalized”, dismissing concerns about funding after billionaire founder Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s death in August.

The airline, operated by SNV Aviation, has not escaped the widespread supply chain disruptions that beset the industry. Many of Akasa’s planes do not have USB charging ports, which are provided by third parties, Dube said. With deliveries starting to arrive, the ports will upgrade to the planes, which will require some assistance from Boeing, he said.