Akasa Air’s rise to become India’s third-largest carrier has been one of the most talked-about stories in Indian aviation. But behind the growth headlines lies a quieter imbalance: the airline faces a pilot utilisation challenge, having hired far too many pilots compared to its fleet size. Around 300 of Akasa’s 750+ pilots are currently under-utilised because of Boeing 737 MAX delivery delays, exposing how an aggressive expansion strategy collided with supply-chain reality.
From sky-high ambitions to delivery drag
In 2021, Akasa Air placed its initial order of 72 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which was followed by four more in June 2023. Then, in January 2024, it announced a blockbuster order for 150 jets, taking its total commitments to 226 aircraft for delivery through 2032.
Back in 2022, Akasa’s leadership spoke of adding one aircraft every two weeks – a blistering pace that, if sustained, would have taken its fleet past 70 aircraft by late 2025. That projection underpinned an aggressive hiring drive. With Indian narrow-body carriers typically staffing 10–12 pilots per aircraft, Akasa’s 750-pilot workforce made sense only if deliveries had kept up. At that ratio, the airline was effectively staffing for a 65- to 75-aircraft operation.
In reality, the delivery cadence collapsed. As of October 2025, Akasa operates just 30 aircraft, having inducted only four jets in 2024 and another four so far in 2025, according to Boeing’s delivery data. That’s roughly one aircraft every three months, not every two weeks. The result is structural imbalance: the airline is staffed for 70 aircraft but flying barely 30, leaving more than 300 pilots grounded or under-utilised. What began as an ambitious growth plan has turned into a costly mismatch between crew strength and available metal, a problem created jointly by Boeing’s delivery delays and Akasa’s front-loaded hiring.
Akasa’s management says it hired ahead of the curve to avoid future crew shortages once deliveries resume – a prudent call at the time, but in hindsight, over-hiring. A 750-pilot workforce would need another 35–45 aircraft to be fully deployed. Even with 12 aircraft deliveries a year, full pilot utilisation remains at least two to three years away, factoring in attrition.
The Delivery Logjam
The situation has to be seen in the broader context of Boeing’s mounting production challenges. The plane maker has grappled with a string of quality-control lapses, supply-chain disruptions, and regulatory scrutiny that have slowed 737 MAX output through 2024 and 2025. After the door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 in January 2024, U.S. regulators imposed tighter oversight and temporary production caps, forcing Boeing to prioritise inspections and rework over new assembly. Compounding this, a machinists’ strike in 2025 halted work at its Renton and Everett plants, freezing deliveries at a time when Boeing was already behind schedule. As a result, airlines worldwide have seen their aircraft deliveries slip by months, with some deferred into 2026. For a young carrier like Akasa that relies entirely on the MAX family, these global bottlenecks have translated into an unexpectedly long wait for growth.
Compounding the problem are at least four completed Boeing 737 MAX aircraft yet to be handed over. Aircraft tracking sites such as Aviation Flights, list VT-YBH, VT-YBI, VT-VBJ, and VT-YBK – all flight-tested between May and September 2025 but not formally handed over. These deliveries appear imminent but likely hinge on factors beyond manufacturing delays. The fact that the earliest of these aircraft dates back to May 2025 underscores a possible financial or contractual bottleneck.. Akasa is reportedly targeting a 40-jet fleet by March 2026, but that will depend on whether these jets are finally delivered in the coming months.
For Akasa, each aircraft stuck at Boeing represents millions of dollars in stranded capacity and months of lost utilisation while trained pilots remain on the payroll. The logjam suggests that the airline’s fleet growth bottleneck extends beyond manufacturing delays at Boeing.
The cost of waiting
Carrying 300 idle pilots is expensive, though not ruinous. Assuming a fully loaded cost of about ₹5 lakh per month per pilot, the annual drag comes to roughly ₹180 crore, equivalent to about 4 percent of Akasa’s FY 2024–25 revenue and 9 percent of its net loss. While not the primary cause of its losses, it signals structural inefficiency of a young airline built for scale that hasn’t materialised yet. But beyond the balance sheet lies a softer challenge: pilot morale, as hundreds of trained crew remain under-utilised.
Akasa’s financials show a carrier still in its growth phase, scaling rapidly but not yet profitable. In FY 2023–24, it reported total income of ₹3,144 crore and a net loss of ₹1,670 crore. A year later, revenue surged 49 percent to ₹4,686 crore, while losses widened 19 percent to ₹1,983 crore.
Akasa’s rise is still remarkable: a 5.5 percent domestic market share in just three years is no small feat. Yet its rapid ascent now meets an equally rapid constraint. Unless Boeing’s delivery pipeline improves and financing accelerates, Akasa may spend the next two years in an uneasy holding pattern – an airline with pilots ready to fly and too few planes to put them in the air.
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