Akasa Air Cancels Flights From Bengaluru, Issued Clarification

Akasa Air has been recently facing operational issues because of a number of pilots abandoning their duties and leaving the office without serving a mandatory contractual notice period.

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Akasa Air, which is facing headwinds due to pilot issues, has cancelled some flights from Bengaluru, sources said on Thursday, while the airline stated it has rationalised the network to ensure high operational reliability. Bengaluru is the hub for the carrier, which operates around 700 flights daily.

Sources said the airline, which has been flying for more than a year, has cancelled some flights from Bengaluru. However, specific details could not be immediately ascertained.

"As we have mentioned before in the July-August 2023 timeframe when a small set of pilots abandoned their duties and left the organisation without serving their mandatory contractual notice period, we were forced to cancel a number of flights.

"Since then, we have rationalised our network to ensure that we offer our customers the highest levels of operational reliability, as we did for the first 11 months of our operation," an Akasa Air spokesperson said in a statement.

The airline flies to 16 cities. According to the spokesperson, with its advanced pilot planning and training programmes, the airline is "now squarely back in growth mode".

"As we take delivery of several additional aircraft in the remainder of this fiscal year, we look forward to opening up several domestic and international destinations within the fiscal year 2023-24," the spokesperson said, adding that the carrier is financially strong.