Akasa Air to expand operations in SAARC and Middle East: Co-founder Aditya Ghosh

Aditya Ghosh

Speaking on the sidelines of the 19th Motilal Annual Global Investor Conference Akasa Air's co-founder Aditya Ghosh spoke to CNBC TV18 about the company's booming growth and the airline's plans to expand internationally.

When asked about the company's recent order of 72 aircraft and its plans to scale up its capacity, Ghosh spoke at length about additions to Akasa's fleet and how it would help in catering to the 'burgeoning demand' for air travel.

"We are in the midst of finalising an order for another triple-digit order so let's take a minimum order of at least 100. That's 176 aeroplanes that will be on order before this year is out and we think that's going to cater for this massive burgeoning demand in the aviation sector for the long period to come," Ghosh said.

Ghosh also spoke about how the airline doesn't currently have any internal guidelines or any internal targets in terms of market share and that he believes that offering 'affordable fares consistently' to customers will ensure a growth in market share automatically.

"I think what's important is to make sure that you run a ferociously low-cost structure, which helps you offer affordable fares consistently to your customers. And customers like the efficiency and the friendliness and market share grows automatically," Ghosh said.

Ghosh also talked about the airline's plans to start international operations in the coming months. Ghosh claimed that Akasa is the 'fastest airline' to start international operations in India. He added that the airline was looking at covering South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries (SAARC), South East Asian countries and countries n the Middle East as part of its international operations.

"We think that the five to six-hour range is ideally suited not just to our type of aircraft but also to where the demand sits so, therefore, we will be covering the SAARC countries, Middle East and Southeast Asia," Ghosh said.

Talking about the aircraft that the airline has acquired for its international expansion, Ghosh said that the airline was getting high-capacity Dash 200s to chase the international demand.

"We are beginning to get our Dash 200s the Boeing 7378-200s, even in our original 76 aircraft order two-thirds of it is the higher capacity Dash 200s so therefore that then is an aircraft that lends perfectly to chasing this international demand," Ghosh said.

Talking about the airline's preparation for the expansion in terms of crew, Ghosh said that the airline had the fungibility to move crew between international and domestic operations.

"We are a single feet type, disciplined sort of operation, it gives us a huge amount of fungibility to move capacity between the international and domestic, we don't have to start thinking about multiple different types of aircraft multiple different types of crew and so on and so forth," the co-founder said.