Akasa Air will not have to cancel flights due to new pilot rest rules: Vinay Dube
Akasa Air doesn’t see any curtailment of flights due to the new pilot rest rules even though it has planned an exponential growth and international foray this summer, CEO Vinay Dube.
Dube is a co-founder of the airline which started in 2022 and is backed by the family of late stock market investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.
“We should rather applaud the regulator for their continuous focus on safety rather than talking if there will be two or three pilots short. We have 24 aircraft and around 700 pilots now which is plenty not just for the current fleet but also for the aircraft that will be delivered later. We will maintain a reliable schedule and there will be no flight cancellations,” Dube said.
Civil Aviation regulator DGCA has refused to extend the deadline for new pilot duty hours from 1 June. Among the primary changes, the new rules rewrites the definition of night period extending it by an hour from 12 AM-5 AM to 12 AM- 6AM and also limits the duty period and to 10 hours. It also caps the number of landings a pilot can do to two.
Dube’s contrarian stance comes even though Federation of Indian airlines- a grouping of airlines including IndiGo and Air India — has said that they will have to cancel 20 % of flights as the new rules will require them to increase the number of pilots by 25% and hiring and training them will not be possible by 1 June.
The airline has told the DGCA that it plans to increase flights 14% compared to last winter. It will also start its international operations later this month with four
Agency probes Philadelphia fatal crash involving Ford that may have been running on automated system
