After months of planning and jumping through the hoops of Indian bureaucracy, Indian startup airline Akasa Air finally launched commercial operations earlier today. It was a momentous occasion as the country welcomed a new airline after approximately eight years. Akasa kicked off operations with its first flight on the Mumbai – Ahmedabad route after an elaborate inauguration ceremony at the airport.

Let’s take a closer look at Akasa Air’s first day of operations.

The flight

Akasa Air’s first scheduled flight, QP 1101, took off from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (BOM) around 10:30 am local time, 25 minutes later than its scheduled departure time. However, data from flight radar shows the aircraft completing its flight two minutes ahead of time, arriving into Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport (AMD) in the Indian city of Ahmedabad at 11:23 am.

It is worth noting that despite the sub-hour flight time, Akasa Air’s inaugural flight briefly became the second most tracked flight on popular flight tracking platform Flightradar24, with over a thousand users following it at one point. The first was a US Air Force Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk unmanned surveillance drone flying close to Ukraine. You can’t top that, Akasa!

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VT-YAA is operating the return leg as flight QP 1102 at the time of writing. Photo: Bfiwatchca350 via Wikimedia Commons

It is worth noting that Akasa operated its first-ever flight using its first-ever aircraft. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 registered as VT-YAA was delivered to the airline back in June. Moreover, this was also the plane used by the carrier in test flights required to obtain an Air Operator’s Certificate from Indian authorities.

VT-YAA has spent the majority of its life after delivery at a remote stand in the capital city’s IGI Airport (DEL), but it was ferried to BOM on Saturday for the launch. Akasa’s second airframe, registered as VT-YAB, was brought to BOM on Friday night.

Inauguration ceremony

Before flight QP 1101 took off, the airline had organized a ceremony at Mumbai Airport to mark the occasion. The event was attended in person by Akasa’s co-founder and billionaire investor, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, and CEO Vinay Dubey. India’s Minister of Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, along with other officials from the ministry, connected virtually from Delhi.

Speaking at the event, CEO Vinay Dube said,

“This is an extremely auspicious occasion. This is an occasion we have dreamt about for a long time and it’s great to see this occasion actually come to fruition. It’s been a long time that we have had this airline on a piece of paper, in our hearts, in our minds, and it’s absolutely wonderful to be able to translate this from that, to hopefully a very satisfied customer.”

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The startup airline is starting new routes throughout this month. Photo: Akasa Air

Akasa has indeed come a long way from just an idea. Co-founder Rakesh Jhunjhunwala lauded Indian authorities and thanked the Minister for continued cooperation every step of the way. He also added some banter to his speech, saying,

“Honorable Minister, I must thank you because they say India has a very bad bureaucracy, but the cooperation that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has given us is unbelievable. Nowhere in the world is an airline conceived and born in 12 months. Normally a child is born in nine, we took 12 months. And it would not have been possible without the cooperation of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.”