Akasa Air starts flying: ‘Normally a child is born in nine months. We took 12 months to launch an airline’

NEW DELHI: Billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed budget airline Akasa Air took to the skies on Sunday with its launch flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad.
Indian aviation industry veteran Vinay Dube, who has headed erstwhile Jet Airways and GoAir in the past, had thought of starting an airline during the pandemic after which he reached out to Jhunjhunwala.
Commending the speed at which the airline was given clearances and the Modi government’s ease of doing business, Jhunjhunwala in his inimitable style said at the Sunday Mumbai Airport launch ceremony: “Nowhere in the world is an airline conceived and born in 12 months. Normally a child is born in nine months. We took 12 months. (It is said) ‘India has a very, very bad bureaucracy’. But the cooperation we have got from the aviation ministry is unbelievable.”