“If you look at Rakesh’s average holding time, I believe you will see the average holding time from his equity investments is over nine years. Whatever chatter (about dilution of stake) is so inconsistent with decades of investment that Rakesh has made. Akasa was the last of the investments that Rakesh made and one of the things that he had the greatest emotional ties to,” Dube said, dismissing speculation that the family may exit the airline earlier than expected after Jhunjhunwala died last year.

“There is no truth to that… you can ask the folks at Rare; you don’t even have to ask me, and they will say the same thing,” Dube added. Rare Enterprises is the Jhunjhunwala family’s investment firm.

A message sent to Utpal Sheth, senior partner and CEO at Rare Enterprises remained unanswered till press time.

Akasa Air, India’s youngest airline which took its first flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad on 7 August, currently has a 4.8% share in domestic aviation. The airline currently has 19 Aircraft, and plans to add the 20th soon. It has 76 planes on order including 23 Boeing 737-8s and 53 Boeing 737-8-200s, which will be its first 200-seater aircraft. Out of the 76 aircraft, the airline had ordered four Boeing 737-8 Max at the Paris Air Show last month.

“As we looked at launching international operations towards the end of the year, we thought we wanted to create long term a sub-fleet of aircraft that actually had the best-in-class range and Boeing 737-8 very specifically has the ability to fly a few hundred nautical miles longer than B737-8-200. So, that is specifically the reason for ordering these four to give us the international capability of range that is best in class,” Dube said.

The airline is looking to launch its international operations by the end of 2023 and is evaluating Singapore, the Middle East and the Gulf region including Dammam, Qatar and Oman as possible destinations, Mint reported in March, citing chief commercial officer Praveen Iyer. The four aircraft ordered at the Paris Air Show are set to be delivered this year, and the airline plans to deploy them on overseas routes.

Under India’s civil aviation regulations, an airline can start international operations with a fleet of 20 aircraft. Akasa is also likely to be one of the fastest in the world to add 20 aircraft, after having started operations in August 2022.

“We are excited about international. Domestically, our focus remains on metro to non-metro cities. Later this year, we will add more domestic, will include some amount of depth and some new routes,” Dube said, adding that the airline will reach a fleet size of 26-27 aircraft by March 2024 and further on, will aim to add around 15 aircraft every year until 2027. Going forward, the airline is gearing up to make an aircraft order in a “three-digit” figure towards the end of the year.

“We are a well-capitalized airline; our airline was capitalized enough to buy 72 aircraft, our airline is capitalized enough to buy extra four aircraft, and our airline is capitalized enough to before the end of this year place a three-digit aircraft order so I can tell you that we are thankfully in a good position,” Dube said.

He further clarified that Akasa Air is looking to order another batch of narrow-body aircraft.

“We are not looking at wide-bodies and turboprops,” he said.

With 200 weekly departures, Akasa Air now connects Mumbai with a dozen domestic destinations comprising Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Lucknow, Goa, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Bagdogra, Kochi and Guwahati.

Updated: 14 Jul 2023, 12:59 AM IST