Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Akasa Air has placed an order for 72 Boeing 737 MAX jets, valued at nearly $9 billion at list prices, the US plane maker has said.
“We are honoured that Akasa Air… has placed its trust in the 737 family to drive affordable passenger service in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation regions,” Stan Deal, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement.
“We are delighted to partner with Boeing for our first airplane order and thank them for their trust and confidence in Akasa Air’s business plan and leadership team,” Akasa Air CEO Vinay Dube said.
“India is one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world with an unparallelled potential. We are already witnessing a strong recovery in air travel, and we see decades of growth ahead of us.”
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According to the statement by Boeing, Akasa Air has ordered two models from the 737 MAX family, the 737-8 and the high-capacity 737-8-200. The Mumbai-based carrier will begin taking delivery of the planes starting mid-2022, according to the statement.
The order by Akasa Air comes months after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) allowed airlines to fly the MAX jet, ending its nearly two and a half years of regulatory grounding after two fatal crashes in five months killed 346 people.
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DGCA grounded all 737 Max planes in India on March 13, 2019, three days after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max plane near Addis Ababa, which had left 157 people, including four Indians, dead.
The low-cost airline received initial clearance from the civil aviation ministry to start operations in October and is expected to begin flying next year.
“We are already witnessing a strong recovery in air travel, and we see decades of growth ahead of us,” Dube said at the Dubai airshow, where the order was announced, according to Reuters.
Boeing was close to winning an order for some 70 to 100 737 MAX jets from Akasa, pending separate talks on a long-term engine service deal, Reuters reported in September this year.
SpiceJet is the only customer for the MAX planes in the country currently.
Akasa Air is backed by ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, former IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh and former Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube.
(With agency inputs)
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