Billionaire Investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwalla Plans New Low Cost Airlines With 70 Planes

Photo courtesy: Business Standard

New Delhi: Hoping to woo fliers with a new brand carrier and low fares, billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwalla is planning on having 70 aircraft within four years for a new airline he wants to set up in the country. The airline will be called Akasa Air and the team, which includes a former senior executive of Delta Air Lines Inc., is looking at planes that can carry 180 passengers, he said in an interview to Bloomberg Television on Wednesday

Jhunjhunwala is considering investing $35 million and would own 40 per cent of the carrier. He expects to get a no-objection certificate from the aviation ministry in the next fortnight, he was quoted as saying.

“For the culture of a company to be frugal you’ve to start off fresh. I’m very, very bullish on India’s aviation sector in terms of demand,” said the man, also known as our very own Waren Buffet.

Kingfisher Airlines Ltd., once the country’s second-largest domestic carrier, ending operations in 2012, and Jet Airways India Ltd., which was recently approved to fly again, collapsed in 2019 has clearly not discouraged Jhunjhunwalla, who claims to have got some of the best airline people in the world as his partners.

According to Forbes, Junjhuwalla has an estimated net worth of about $4.6 billion.