India has \u201cincredibly affordable\u201d airfares and the country\u2019s aviation market has the kind of growth potential where Akasa Air as well as other carriers can do well, according to the nearly two-year-old airline\u2019s chief Vinay Dube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Akasa Air prepares to take the international skies on March 28 with the first overseas flight from Mumbai to Doha, Dube also asserted that the airline is not about \u201cmarketing gimmicks\u201d. Akasa Air is aiming to be among the world\u2019s top 30 airlines by 2030 and will go public in future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe think we have a great financial future. Listing is in our future\u2026 but you never say never. We hope to list some day,\u201d he told PTI in an interview this week. While acknowledging that aviation competition has always been intense, he said that as long as the focus is on fundamentals, there is enough room not just for Akasa Air to thrive in the future but for others as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThanks to the growth that we are going to see in India, it is not that Akasa will do well only if someone else does badly, no, Akasa can do well and others can do well, that is the kind of growth that India has to offer,\u201d the airline\u2019s Founder and CEO said.
The carrier, which started flying in August 2022, has a fleet of 24 planes and a domestic market share of 4.5 per cent.
To a query about air ticket prices, Dube said the country has some of the cheapest airfares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India, which is one of the world\u2019s fastest-growing civil aviation markets, is also seen in some quarters as price sensitive, especially with rising number of air travellers, including first-time fliers. There have been concerns, mainly during festival seasons, that air ticket prices are high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI see fares to be some of the cheapest in the world as I saw them three months ago, six months ago\u2026 I think Indian airfares when you compare them to parts of Europe, East Asia, North America, you compare to any decent-sized aviation economy in the world, India has some of the most affordable airfares by a long margin, not just by Rs 10 or 100\u2026 Indian airfares are incredibly affordable,\u201d Dube said.
Travel portal Cleartrip\u2019s outgoing CEO Ayyappan Rajagopal said airfares are expected to go up, both on international and domestic segments, as there is high demand and more people are making bookings in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the premium segment, the (price) sensitivity is not so high. There is a second set of consumers, they are a lot more bothered about pricing and they might even take three hops to reach a destination,\u201d he told PTI. Meanwhile, Akasa Air\u2019s Dube said there is no shortage of pilots at the airline and that there won\u2019t be any flight disruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The revised flight duty time limitation norms that provide for increased rest time for pilots will come into force from June 1.
\u201cWe have got around 700 pilots at Akasa. We have no pilot shortage. I don\u2019t want to just say no without giving numbers as you can make your own calculations on what an airline with 24 aircraft requires when it comes to pilots. \u201cWe are focused on creating a highly reliable network. We want to be India\u2019s most on-time airline. We want to make sure we have the lowest cancellation rate,\u201d Dube said. On whether there could be disruptions once the revised norms are implemented, he replied in the negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAbsolutely, 100 per cent you are not going to see disruptions\u2026 Reliability is intrinsic to everything we do at Akasa. Nobody should expect any disruptions in June,\u201d he noted. Regarding bilateral air traffic rights, the Akasa Air chief said there is plenty of room for international expansion. Some Gulf carriers have been seeking enhanced flying rights to operate more flights to and from the country. However, the government is not in favour of granting more bilateral flying rights. \u201cI think that there may be a couple of markets in the entire Gulf where bilaterals have saturated like Dubai and Sharjah, the best I know but places like Abu Dhabi have a lot of capacity, Dammam has open skies, we have got Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait, I think there is room in Bahrain, Muscat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, if you ask me particularly about the Middle East, I don\u2019t see issues. South East Asia has a lot of capacity in almost every market. So, I think we are good that there is plenty of room for expansion internationally,\u201d Dube said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked whether there is any particular tag that Akasa Air would like to be identified with, Dube said that personally, he does not like such a tag. \u201cWe are India\u2019s most on-time airline, lowest cancellation rates, best baggage\u2026 literally, we have got the best leg room in India, take your tape, measure out and measure it, we have got USB ports increasing in flights, the quality of food is fantastic, we think we have got some of the best-trained staff. \u201c\u2026 I don\u2019t have a tag, Akasa is not about marketing gimmicks. We are really there to serve the people with the best customer service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India has \u201cincredibly affordable\u201d airfares and the country\u2019s aviation market has the kind of growth potential where Akasa Air as well as other carriers can do well, according to the nearly two-year-old airline\u2019s chief Vinay Dube. As Akasa Air prepares to take the international skies on March 28 with the first overseas flight from Mumbai […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[667],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}