Akasa Air plans flights to more overseas destinations expects faster plane deliveries Airline CCO

    New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) Akasa Air will plan flights to various overseas destinations, including Singapore, Vietnam and Kazakhstan, as it gets new planes and Boeing aircraft deliveries are expected to be faster, a senior airline official said on Monday.
     Akasa Air's Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer Praveen Iyer said the airline will also look at the option of starting services to China. "We don't have (bilateral flying) rights for China now, but we will consider them in the future".
     The more than three-year-old airline, which is loss-making, currently has a fleet of 30 planes and flies to 24 domestic and 6 international destinations. It has been facing delays in aircraft deliveries.
     At a briefing in the national capital, Iyer said it will very soon start international flights from Delhi and the airline is also looking forward to start services from the upcoming Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh.
     Currently, the airline has 24 daily departures from Delhi.
     The airline has a firm order for a total of 226 Boeing 737 MAX planes and has been facing aircraft delivery delays.
     With Boeing increasing production, Iyer said Akasa Air expects aircraft to come faster.
     Iyer said the airline has bilateral flying rights and will look at having flights to Singapore, Tashkent, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Indonesia, among other destinations.
     The airline will look at destinations that can be reached within 5.5 hours and as long as it sees potential and demand in those destinations, he added.
     Akasa Air, currently, flies to six international cities -- Doha (Qatar), Jeddah, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kuwait City (Kuwait) and Phuket (Thailand).
     To a query regarding recent cancellation of some flights due to the new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms, Iyer said it was a transition issue.
     "Our pilots for the aircraft we have deployed is absolutely fine, both from captains and first officers point of view... we had about 8-1o flight cancellations on a particular day and this was a transition process to the new FDTL... all of us faced it across... it did impact some of the OTPs for all the airlines around the first 3-4 days... this is just a transition issue...," he said.
     The airline, which has 750-775 pilots, expects to restart hiring of pilots in 2026, mainly first officers.
     "Most of the pilots are utilised now... all who are with us will fly by the end of this year...," he noted.
     Airlines have implemented the revised FDTL norms in two phases -- one set from July 1 and the second set from November 1 -- that provides for more weekly rest hours and reduced number of night landings.
     Meanwhile, Iyer said there has been a 50 per cent growth in the airline's ASKs and over 50 per cent growth in revenues.
     ASK or Available Seat Kilometres is a measure of an airline's passenger carrying capacity.
     "The right equilibrium is being maintained at this stage... in terms of load factors, prices, profitability... historically, it was a pretty haphazard situation pre-Covid, I think now it is probably in the sweet spot...," Iyer said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)