India's newest budget carrier Akasa opens bookings, flights begin on Aug 7

Jet Airways (India)

22/07/2022 09:39

By Aditi Shah
    NEW DELHI, July 22 (Reuters) - India's newest budget carrier
Akasa Air, which is backed by billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala,
has opened ticket sales for its first commercial flights
starting Aug. 7, the airline said in a statement on Friday.
    Akasa's initial network will include a total of 56 weekly
flights between the western cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad and
the southern cities of Bengaluru and Kochi on its new Boeing
 BA.N  737 MAX planes, it said. 
    "Akasa Air's network strategy is focused on establishing a
strong pan-India presence and providing linkages from metro to
tier 2 and tier 3 cities across the country," said Praveen Iyer,
the airline's co-founder and chief commercial officer.
    Iyer said Akasa will expand its network in a phased manner,
connecting to more cities as it adds new aircraft each month. 
    Akasa's commercial launch comes at a time when domestic air
travel in India has seen a sharp recovery with airlines flying
over 57 million passengers in the first six months of the year,
up 238% from a year ago, government data showed. 
    This is helping airlines such as IndiGo  INGL.NS , India's
biggest carrier, and Vistara, a joint venture between Singapore
Airlines  SIAL.SI  and Tata Sons, to boost capacity and
utilisation levels.
    Air India, under its new owners the Tata Group, and
full-service carrier Jet Airways  JET.NS , which has come out of
bankruptcy, are close to finalising new plane orders.
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    Akasa, which has a total of 72 Boeing planes on order, will
directly compete with other budget carriers like IndiGo,
SpiceJet  SPJT.NS  and GoFirst. 
    Jhunjhunwala, known as "India's Warren Buffett", has teamed
up with ex-Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube and former IndiGo head
Aditya Ghosh for Akasa.

 (Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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