Akasa Air in the middle of crisis: How bad could the pilot shortage be?

With Indian aviation staring at a potential scramble for pilots, airlines such as Akasa can feel deflated

If a week is a long time in politics, six weeks can be an aeon in aviation.

On August 7, Akasa was celebrating its first anniversary and telling the world it had accumulated a fleet of 20 aircraft in record time and had overtaken SpiceJet in market share. On September 19, its lawyer said in the Delhi High Court the airline might have to stop operations unless its 43 pilots who had resigned served their notice periods.

The very next day, Akasa’s CEO, Vinay Dube (pictured), who is also one of its founders, said there was no chance of the