Akasa Air – the Mumbai headquartered low cost carrier has opened reservations for its first international route. The airline will launch flights to Doha from Mumbai starting March 28, 2024. This makes Akasa Air the fastest private Indian airline to launch International operations and make the most of the 0/20 rule which came into effect with the National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP), 2016. This will make Akasa Air the seventh airline from India to operate international services.
The airline currently has a fleet of 24 aircraft and recently placed an order for 150 737 MAX aircraft. The airline had ordered 72 MAX aircraft at the Dubai air show in 2021, and added four aircraft at the Paris Air Show in 2023. At the time of placing that incremental order for four aircraft, the airline had said that out of 76 aircraft, 23 would be the MAX 8 while 53 would be the -8-200 high density variant. If the numbers still stand valid, the delivery of 23 aircraft is now complete. Considering that the airline is taking in white tails (aircraft meant for other airlines), there is a high chance that this composition has since changed.
The flight timings would be as below
QP70 BOM1745 – 1940DOH
QP71 DOH2040 – 0245(+1)BOM
Flights operated by MAX 8 and operate on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
Akasa Air will launch International operations on the 599th day of operations. Vistara had launched its international services after 1670 days with Singapore as the first destination, while IndiGo started international operations after 1854 days and Dubai was its first destination. SpiceJet launched operations to Kathmandu and Colombo after 1962 days of operating in domestic skies, while Go Air took the longest at 4724 days when it launched flights to Phuket. AirAsia India never went international and eventually merged with Air India Express.
Data shared by Cirium – an aviation analytics company, shows that Qatar Airways operates 99 flights a week each way, deploying 24031 seats. From the Indian side, IndiGo operates the maximum 76 flights a week deploying 14136 seats each way. The Indian side operates 23330 seats each way and a total of 129 frequencies. The India – Qatar market is capped by seats and with Qatar Airways deploying wide body aircraft, the number of frequencies are lesser. With the addition of Akasa Air, the Indian side would operate 133 frequencies with 24086 seats each way.
Doha is connected with 16 destinations in India and Mumbai will have the maximum frequencies when Akasa Air starts operations, with 38 weekly flights each way, followed by Delhi at 35. Hyderabad has 28 while Bengaluru and Chennai have 14 each. Qatar Airways operates to 13 destinations in India, followed by indiGo connecting seven Indian destinations to Qatar.
The traffic and airports
Hamad International Airport, Doha is the only airport which serves Qatar. The airport opened in 2014 and acts as a hub for Qatar Airways. Mumbai airport is the second busiest airport in India and the city hosts the headquarters of Akasa Air. An average of 5500 passengers fly each way between India and Qatar per day, many of whom fly onwards to other parts of the world with Qatar Airways.
Network Thoughts
The four weekly operations to begin with are low risk from the airline point of view. For a new carrier in a new market on a longer route. The airline will face competition from daily Qatar Airways flights, in addition to double daily flights of IndiGo, nine weekly of Air India and four times a week service of Vistara. Vistara and Qatar have an interline partnership while IndiGo and Qatar have a close partnership allowing Qatar to add more passengers from India, as the bilateral rights are restricted.
Amongst the destinations reported in media where Akasa Air has been granted rights, flights to Qatar are the shortest. With Go FIRST down and SpiceJet shrinking, it is for the government to allocate rights for others to fly. Will Akasa Air get those rights and how soon will it be?
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