The 14-month-old Akasa Air is hoping to end the crisis the company has been facing following the abrupt resignation of pilots in recent months. The low-cost carrier is all set to implement a contingency plan to fix the operational crisis that has led to mass cancellations of flight services and suspension of flights on some routes.
Akasa Air is in the process of recruiting 110 pilots in the coming days and increasing connectivity by 30-35 per cent by the end of the current fiscal by improving weekly flight operations. The abrupt resignation of pilots over the months had hit flight operations, with cancellation rates hitting 1.17 per cent in August, which later decreased to 0.37 per cent in September, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
While Akasa Air suspended its Bengaluru-Chennai flight services in June because of the ‘network optimization process’, the airline has temporarily cut its operations between Bengaluru and Hyderabad given the ‘capacity’ of pilots following the abrupt resignations.
According to industry sources, mass hiring by other airline companies – who are expanding operations after placing orders for aircrafts worth billions of dollars – led to the abrupt resignation of Akasa Air pilots.
According to a statement by the airlines, Akasa has a current strength of over 450 pilots and 20 aircrafts. In addition, the airline has 110 signed commitments from pilots who are in various stages of their notice period and will join them upon completion.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Praveen Iyer, chief commercial officer and co-founder of Akasa Air, said, “Some of these pilots left us with a short notice of less than 24 hours. When you encounter such resignations, it does have an impact on the ability to roster your flights. That was the impact (cancellations) we saw in August and September.”
“However, while we carried out these cancellations, we made sure the customer was protected not only within our own network, but we also offered seats on other airlines by buying tickets which was probably never done in the industry before. Over the last couple of months, we offered a few thousand tickets,” he added.
As for the contingency plan, Iyer said, “We are pretty certain that the pilots’ issue is behind us. Moving forward, we will see to it that we increase the current outlay to improve the weekly flight operations by 10 per cent by December and further boost connectivity by 30-35 per cent at the end of the current fiscal. Everything we have envisaged is aligned to the objective in terms of adding capacity, providing the right connectivity through adding more flights and frequency across India.”
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Akasa also stated that it will now be adopting a cautious approach and will not resort to ‘cut backs’ after adding capacity to its workforce and operations, given the peak seasonality for aviation as the festive period begins.
According to DGCA data, at the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal, Akasa carried over 6 lakh passengers by the end of June, with a market share of 4.9 per cent. However, following the abrupt resignation of pilots, the airline’s passenger count dipped by almost a lakh to 5.17 lakh in September at the end of the second quarter with a slight decrease in the market share by 0.7 per cent.
Many flyers were left inconvenienced over the past several weeks with the airline cancelling flight services on some routes, including Benglauru-Chennai and Bengaluru-Hyderabad. Some customers also took to social media, complaining that the airline had charged them the cancellation fee when the cancellation was done by the airline itself.
