India’s third largest airline in terms of market share, Akasa Air’s financial performance in FY25 improved as per the airline’s chief financial officer (CFO) Ankur Goel, with a revenue growth of 49% year-on-year (y-o-y).
Akasa also registered a 48% y-o-y jump in Available Seat Kilometres (ASK)—the passenger-carrying capacity of an airline. Its fleet grew 50% to a current fleet strength of 30 aircraft, all from the Boeing MAX 737 family.
Akasa’s Available Revenue per Available Seat Kilometer (RASK) stood at 13%. On the other hand the Cost per Available Seat Kilometer (CASK) was under 10%. RASK is a metric to measure how much revenue and airline makes per seat. CASK is the cost of operating one seat.
“Our CASK stood at 8% including fuel expenses, the margins have become significantly better and our Ebitda margins for the last fiscal year is actually 50% better compared to FY24. As a new airline it will take us time to become operationally profitable and we are on the right path,” said Goel. Ebitda, a measure of profitability, stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Akasa’s CFO further said that RASK will continue to improve and costs are expected to go down. “In the first seven months of this year and first four months of the current fiscal, we are seeing y-o-y improvement in RASK and are seeing a cost reduction. The current situation is better than what we had projected at the beginning of the year,” said Goel.
Akasa Air since its inception has placed orders for Boeing 737 MAX family aircraft three times.
Initially the airline placed an order for 72 aircraft in 2021 with a follow-up order of 4 aircraft in 2023. In 2024 the airline placed a significantly bigger order of 150 aircraft, taking the total order book to 226 aircraft. The airline has received 30 aircraft while another 196 will be delivered by 2032.
Goel is confident about the fleet induction and said that the airline enjoys a good relationship with Boeing. “Boeing has been a very reliable and supportive partner. Let’s not underestimate what Boeing has done for us; not many airlines in the world can induct 30 aircraft in a span of 2-3 years,” he said.
He said that the airline is looking at a “new Boeing”.
“A lot of the issues are behind them, so…we are confident in terms of their ability to deliver. The conversation that we’re having with Boeing these days is around how soon can we get our aircraft,” said Goel.
The airline is expected to induct more aircraft this year than anticipated earlier. “The plans that we had laid out for FY26, it seems that we may just end up with more aircraft than what we planned for at the beginning of the year. Our plan is to induct all aircraft by 2032 and we will be growing our fleet between 25-30% every year” added Goel.
For the current year, Akasa expects to grow it’s ASKs by over 30% and an upward trajectory in RASK. The airline is also planning to capitalize on the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport and Noida International Airport.
Akasa also plans to increase its international operations from the current 16% to around 20-25% this year. Responding to Mint‘s question Goel said, “Having more bilaterals is generally good and are working to get more especially for Middle East. But we are not constrained by these markets, our aircraft are capable of flying 6 hours…have a lot of flying opportunities—like to South East Asia.”