Hundreds of excess pilots grounded at Akasa as plane deliveries retard

Hundreds of excess pilots grounded at Akasa as plane deliveries retard

Akasa received three aircraft in 2024 after adding an aircraft per month for two years; pilots expect training timelines to spill over before they can start flying

Published - January 11, 2025 09:12 pm IST - NEW DELHI

Jagriti Chandra

An Akasa Air passenger aircraft. File | Photo Credit: Reuters

The global shortage of new aircraft that has disrupted expansion plans for most airlines in the world has also led to an oversupply of pilots at Akasa Air. With Boeing 737 MAX deliveries slowing down in 2024, anxiety among the grounded cockpit crew is rising as their wait to start flying stretches on.

Akasa Air has nearly 850 pilots, which is far in excess of the cockpit crew it needs to operate a fledgling fleet of 26 aircraft, according to industry practice.

Multiple pilots under training at Akasa Air said an estimated 400 pilots of the 850 pilots were yet to start flying since being hired. Post-joining training, originally slated for 12 months, has stretched to 18 months, and pilots are concerned they may face an additional six-month wait, increasing their total wait time for being released for flying the airline’s aircraft from one to two years.

In response to a detailed questionnaire from The Hindu, the airline’s spokesperson said, “Despite the changes in the aircraft delivery schedules, more than 60% of our pilots have begun to accumulate flying hours.” It added that by the end of 2025, it would be able to ensure a vast majority of pilots start flying.

While the airline has offered a salary equivalent of 40 hours of flying to pilots on ground, a delay in resumption of flying for a large chunk of pilots means they will continue to take home at least 50% less salary at ₹2.6 lakh to ₹6.25 lakh over an extended period as compared to their peers. Those impacted include not just mid-career professionals, but also newbie pilots who have hefty training loans ranging between ₹60 lakh to ₹1.2 crore to repay.

As a new airline that started flights post COVID-19 in August 2022 when the aviation industry was badly hit by global travel restrictions to curtail the spread of coronavirus, Akasa Air chalked an ambitious plan to grow to a 72 aircraft strong fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8s over the first five years riding on the growth prospect of the Indian domestic aviation market, which is the third biggest and the fastest growing in the world. It later topped up its order by another 154 MAXs.

But 2024 put a spanner in those plans as the airline was able to add only three aircraft over a span of 12 months, after broadly adding a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft per month over a span of two years in 2022 and 2023 and growing to a fleet size of 23 planes. Its 24th aircraft arrived in February 2024, followed by two more aircraft in September 2024.

With one more aircraft expected to join the fleet by March, Akasa Air will close the financial year 2025 with 15 aircraft less than its initial projection of 42 aircraft leaving it with a large number of excess pilots, accounting for even those pilots needed to be trained for future expansion. The airline declined to comment on the number of aircraft they expected to add in 2025.

The initial MAX order for the airline came at a time when other airlines were hesitant to buy them following the grounding of the MAX fleet globally after over 340 people were killed in two crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving the same aircraft model. This easy availability of the aircraft allowed Akasa Air a competitive advantage as it could expand their fleet quickly at a lower price point once regulators moved to lift the ban on flying the MAXs.

But this changed as the supply chain issues post Covid-19 began to retard aircraft production. This was exacerbated by the U.S. aviation safety watchdog i.e. the Federation of Aviation Authority capping the production of new Boeing 737 MAX planes after a mishap on January 5, 2024, when the door plug on an Alaskan Airline’s flight fell off mid-flight. Later that year, all aircraft assembly at Boeing’s Renton, Washington facility, came to a halt after a strike by its machinists in September that lasted over 55 days.

But the airline has been on a spree to recruit pilots in large numbers from the “very beginning” in what some call a “calculated risk”. Though three years since the launch it seems “the worst case scenario has played out for the airline”, said a former executive of the airline.

The person explained that Akasa needs nearly 18 pilots per aircraft keeping in mind the pace with which it planned to double its fleet. This figure includes 12 pilots needed to operate each 737 MAX 8 aircraft, and an additional six required to be in the training pipeline for future expansion. This math, which is also a widely adopted aircraft-crew ratio, would mean that with 26 aircraft the airline needs only 468 cockpit crew of the nearly 850 it has employed.

The airline’s pilots have now started emailing complaint letters to the regulator and the Ministry of Civil Aviation about “favouritism” within the airline in releasing pilots for flying duties, while the DGCA has also slapped fines on Akasa Air and suspended two of its senior officials over training lapses.

Aircraft delivery delays have upended growth plans for airlines globally with Emirates CEO Tim Clark recently saying that they find their “wings clipped” because of delays in Boeing 777-nine deliveries and IATA DG Willie Walsh too expressing frustration as deliveries in 2024 were 30% below expectations. These delays have forced Air India, IndiGo, and SpiceJet to tap into secondary market and take planes on lease. While Akasa Air has not made any such move, it is reported to be in the midst of raising funds up to $130-140 million from a consortium comprising Premji Invest and Claypond Capital, the Bengaluru-based family offices of Wipro founder Azim Premji and Manipal group chief Ranjan Pai, who are likely to buy a significant minority stake.