A revamped Air India beneath the Tata Group might be an actual problem whereas new airline Akasa Air might be a far much less aggressive pressure for the subsequent two-three years, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta stated on Wednesday.
Akasa Air, which is backed by former IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh, ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and former Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube, received the no-objection certificates (NOC) from the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Monday.
“Akasa is a far less competitive force for now or for the next two-three years. They will have to grow and grow slowly, get the slots, get the planes. They are not going to come out of the box, raring to go. There will be a slow build.”
“And against that, I think we have good defences. We are the lowest cost carrier. It will be tough for anyone to get their costs lower than us,” Dutta stated in a pre-recorded interview at an occasion organised by aviation consultancy agency CAPA.
Whatever numbers anybody seems to be at, “we are running a damn good airline” with very low prices and with an ideal community, he added.
“In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, we opened nine new domestic stations,” Dutta stated.
“So, for a new entrant, it will be tougher to compete with us. But (new) Air India- that is the real challenge for us,” he added.
On October 8, the federal government introduced that Talace Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, has overwhelmed a consortium led by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh by providing Rs 18,000 crore to win the bid to amass debt-laden Air India.
Dutta stated Air India might be a formidable pressure beneath the Tata Group and IndiGo doesn’t take it evenly in any respect.
“Internationally, they will be a strong competitor. Domestically, they have now three carriers- Vistara, AirAsia India and Air India- all put together. So they will be tough competition. I see them as a formidable force,” he famous.
Dutta stated IndiGo is at present working roughly 85 per cent of its pre-Covid home flights and round 40 per cent of its pre-Covid worldwide flights.
“We are not growing a lot in the next 18 months or so. After that, we start growing,” he said.
(PTI)