Akasa Air, India’s youngest airline, was the only carrier that added meaningful capacity in the local market in recent months, emerging as a growing threat to the IndiGo-Air India duopoly amid disruptions caused by the Iran war.
The total number of flights operated by the country’s four major airline companies dropped nearly 6% across March and April from the same period a year earlier, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. IndiGo, the country’s largest airline, had 4.5% fewer flights, while Air India Ltd.’s full-service airline reduced services by 7.5% and its low-cost unit Air India Express did so by 17.1%.
In contrast, Akasa expanded capacity by 13.2% over the same period, albeit from a much smaller base than its larger rivals. The low-cost carrier, which was founded during the coronavirus pandemic and made its first commercial flight in 2022, operated 10,109 flights in March and April 2026. That was about 4.7% of the total number of domestic and international flights by Indian airlines during the period, the Cirium data showed. It didn’t provide a breakdown between the two.
India’s commercial passenger aviation market has been dominated by two companies in the past few years, with IndiGo and Air India Group controlling nearly 90% of domestic capacity. Akasa, which has much fewer planes than the incumbents, intends to dramatically increase its fleet size in the coming years to rival the biggest carriers.
