AI Express and Akasa Air remove premium seats while no-frills IndiGo adds business class

Mumbai: Just months after IndiGo set an aspirational tone for domestic low-cost carriers with plans to offer luxury in business class, Akasa Air and Air India Express are ditching the premium seats they had inherited as they look to improve operational efficiency.

Akasa Air, India’s newest airline that was co-founded by the late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, has already replaced premium seats on most of its fleet of two dozen aircraft with regular economy class seats and expects to complete the process by October, a senior executive said.

Air India Express has embarked on a similar modernisation process, moving away from market leader IndiGo’s bet that passengers will be willing to pay a premium to travel in business class even on budget airlines.

Akasa Air and Air India Express had inherited business class seats from Boeing 737 Max aircraft, designed to specifications from Chinese airlines that cancelled their orders following fatal crashes involving the US-made planes. A trade war between the US and China is believed to have contributed to this decision.

“We never offered those seats as business class anyway,” said Praveen Iyer, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Akasa, which offered an upgrade to passengers who could pay more for larger seats with more legroom.

While Akasa Air set the price of its premium seats at ₹3,500 more than its regular fare, Air India Express tagged its business class seats at approximately ₹16,000 in the Delhi-Mumbai sector. That is still below the average. ₹26,000 charged by its parent company, Air India, a full-service airline owned by the Tata Group, for a business class seat on the same route.

“We would have replaced these business class seats earlier if these replacements had been available earlier,” a senior Air India Express executive said on condition of anonymity. “The seats were not available due to supply chain issues and they are now available. We have started replacing the seats on the aircraft now and will soon be able to replace them on all of them.”

Air India Express did not respond toMint Email sent Thursday evening.

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Reducing complexities

Aviation experts said the decision by Air India Express and Akasa Air to do away with premium seats is in line with the business philosophies of these two airlines. Having a single tier of customers reduces complexities, which helps them keep operational costs low, they said.

“Both airlines are no frills, so it makes sense that they want all their cabins to be economy class,” said Ajay Prakash, president of the Federation of Indian Travel Agents.

Akasa Air has 24 aircraft and plans to add one more soon. All its aircraft are Boeing 737 MAX and have the same engine to standardize the crew. It has more than 200 additional aircraft on order from Boeing, which will be added by 2030.

Air India Express has 80 aircraft, of which 52 are Boeing 737 and Boeing 737 MAX. The rest are Airbus A320.

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While these low-cost airlines are focusing on consolidating their operations towards the economy class, IndiGo’s entry into business class has divided the Indian aviation industry over whether low-cost airline consumers will pay for business class facilities.

IndiGo has announced plans to launch business class seats on its Airbus A321 aircraft.

Scheduled to begin in November on the Delhi-Mumbai sector, IndiGo’s business class, called IndiGo Stretch, offers an introductory price of ₹18,018. IndiGo’s regular fare for this route in November is approx. ₹4,000.

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