Akasa Air sees light at end of delivery tunnel as aircraft flows steady, pilot hiring restarts
“So I would say this is a thing of the past,” said Vinay Dube, founder and chief executive officer of Akasa Air. Mintreferring to previous delays. “Deliveries are much more predictable and much more frequent.”
According to Akasa, the chain is now moving again; Aircraft deliveries determine pilot recruitment, which in turn determines how much capacity an airline can deploy and how efficiently it can allocate fixed costs.
Akasa, which operates an all-Boeing narrow-body fleet, has slowed its fleet expansion and paused pilot recruitment due to shrinking aircraft supply despite a recovery in demand in the Indian aviation sector. The improved delivery schedule now allows the airline to continue growing without resorting to wet lease aircraft or changing its uniform fleet strategy.
Akasa put two aircraft into service in January and one in February. Dube said two more are expected at the end of this month, and one or two will be delivered in March. The airline currently operates 33 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, with three more to be added in 2026.
Akasa, which was launched in August 2022, is waiting for the order for 226 aircraft it received from Boeing to be completed to support its long-term expansion plans.
The stability in deliveries coincides with Boeing’s efforts to increase narrow-body production. Boeing India and South Asia president Salil Gupte had previously said Mint The US aircraft maker is targeting at least two deliveries per month this year as production increases at US facilities, he said.
India’s commercial aircraft fleet currently consists of approximately 800 aircraft; IndiGo operates around 440 aircraft, Air India group operates around 297 and SpiceJet operates around 35 aircraft; This underscores the scale gap that Akasa is trying to close as deliveries increase.
Pilots are on the agenda again
With the acceleration of aircraft purchases, Akasa has restarted pilot recruitment after an 18-month break and is currently recruiting experienced first officers. Dube said the airline will soon expand hiring to include student partnerships and inexperienced pilots as deliveries ramp up.
“You know all this, we made a very conscious decision two to two and a half years ago when we first talked to Boeing and realized from them that our deliveries were not going to be at the pace we had originally planned,” Dube said. “We may have extra pilots, but these pilots were loyal to us when we were a young airline. We can neither lay them off nor put them on unpaid leave.”
Akasa currently employs 757 pilots.
Dube says recruiting push is new He emphasized that it has nothing to do with phase flight duty time limitation (FDTL) norms.
“Nothing I have mentioned here is linked to the new FDTL norms. They are more linked to our aircraft delivery programme,” he said.
Gagan Dixit, vice president of oil, gas and aviation at Elara Capital, said if deliveries remain on track, Akasa’s fleet could grow to 45-50 aircraft in the next 12-18 months, which would improve fuel efficiency, reduce maintenance costs and ease working capital pressures. However, he added that profitability is still 2-2.5 years away.
Discipline versus opportunism
Despite increasing competition and aggressive capacity expansions in the Indian aviation market, Akasa says it is not chasing market share or making strategic changes in the medium term.
“Being opportunistic is not necessarily a good thing because it undermines discipline,” Dube said. he said. “There is nothing of the nature of opportunism that Akasa has done historically.”
Instead, the airline focuses on operational discipline, cost control and capital strength, where Dube believes airlines have historically floundered. “One of the biggest reasons airlines get into trouble is lack of capital,” he said. “We may make other mistakes, but we won’t make these two (having insufficient capital and having an uncompetitive cost structure).”
Elara’s Dixit said it makes sense to emphasize discipline rather than market share at this stage. He added that market share gains could come later as the airline becomes profitable, making capital management and profitability the right priorities for now.
This discipline is also reflected in Akasa’s work preferences. The airline remains committed to a single aircraft type, economy-only cabins and a focused city model rather than hub-and-spoke operations. It has no plans to introduce business class seats or regional aircraft and will instead deploy the 737 MAX to expand into secondary and tertiary markets where demand supports narrow-body operations.
“When you use words like opportunistic or sudden, you can expect good from Akasa,” Dube said. “We are not looking at regional aircraft and we are focused on our single aircraft type and we are happy.”
About the hub and spoke model, Dube said: “We will have focus cities… We are looking at Navi Mumbai and Noida International Airport as focus airports. We will have a large concentration of aircraft.”
Dube said the airline has been steadily building its international network and expects about 40 percent of its operations to be on global routes in the next three to four years. Akasa currently operates international flights to five destinations.
Akasa closed its 25th fiscal year with the following revenue: ₹4,582.72 crore and loss ₹1,983.4 crore. Backed by late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s family and fresh capital raised in August 2025, the airline holds around 5% of the domestic market.
In October 2025, Akasa saw the exit of co-founder Neelu Khatri, who headed international operations. Khatri was not a board member and owned less than 1% of the airline’s holding company, SNV Aviation.
The release came after Akasa ₹1,200 crore fundraising led by Premji Invest and Claypond Capital in August 2025, along with additional commitments from 360 ONE Asset Management and Jhunjhunwala family trusts.
Dube said the airline plans to seek new investor representation on its board and has applied for security clearance for such an appointment.
