Written by Sharmita Kar | Edited by Aniruddha Dhar
Akasa Air, which took its first flight two months ago, suffered a suspected bird hit on its Mumbai-Bengaluru flight on Friday. The aircraft was forced to return to the Mumbai airport moments after take-off following complaints of a burning smell. All passengers and crew on board were safe.
Late billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala had invested in Akasa Air, which completed 60 days on October 7. “We are very happy, satisfied with… our performance,” the airlines founder and CEO Vinay Dube had told the press.
Akasa Air started its services with a flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. Since then, it has expanded its network to Chennai, Kochi and Bengaluru.
Akasa was aiming to operate over 250 flights per week on nine domestic routes by the second week of October, the airline announced on Friday as it made an entry to the highly-competitive Delhi market.
Currently, the carrier has just six planes and expects to have a total of 18 aircraft by the end of March next year. Akasa Air also plans to start international services in the second half of 2023 once it has a fleet of at least 20 planes.