Akasa Air To Start Ticket Bookings In Early July Says CEO Vinay Dube

Akasa Air, India’s newest airline, is all set to open ticket booking with extremely affordable fares from early July, says CEO Vinay Dube in an exclusive interview with ET Now.

Akasa Air on Wednesday takes the delivery of its very first 737 Max aircraft from Boeing in Seattle, USA.

The first aircraft of Akasa Air, Boeing 737Max (VT-YAA) is reportedly taxiing from Seattle to India, having landed in Iceland yesterday en route to its final destination in New Delhi, India.

The plane will make another stop in Cyprus before landing in India. It is expected to arrive in India on June 21st.

It is worth noting that Akasa Air order 72 737 MAX aircraft last year to build its fleet, which is valued at roughly $9 billion. The airline intends to take on 18 additional aircraft by March of next year, and the remaining 54 over the next four years.

Akasa Air to start ticket booking in early July

In an interview with ET, CEO Vinay Dube stated, “We are sticking to our target timeframe.” It’s the end of July, and everything appears to be coming into place for us to meet that goal…

“From very early July or maybe the first week of July, we expect to start booking tickets.. At Akasa, we hope to have very affordable fares for our consumers as well as a level of customer service that is warm, friendly, and comfortable. We hope that we will be able to provide our consumers with a very good travel experience and extremely affordable fares.“

In response to the sharp increase in the price of ATF, Dube stated, “We have the new generation Boeing 737 Max aircraft, one of the most fuel-efficient and greenest aircraft in the world, and we will have the youngest fleet of these new-age aircraft.” So, in terms of fuel price, we are certain that we will be able to compete regardless of where the fuel price is.

Commenting on routes and sectors, Dube stated that Akasa Air will look to operate sectors connecting metro cities, tier two, and tier-three cities.

“We have got 737 Max aircraft; it is a midsized narrow body. We will not be able to fly with that aircraft into an extremely small city with a population of three, four, or five hundred thousand. Of course, I am equating population with the size of a runway and the length of the runway. So, we will focus on the metro cities and tier two and tier three cities,” CEO Vinay Dube added.

(With inputs from ET Now)