Can Akasa Air be the rival IndiGo’s never had?

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Editor's note: It would be normal to get up the morning after an unceremonial exit from your job with the feeling of having been wronged and the desire to hang up one’s boots. But what if one were to be inspired to prove oneself all over again? On 15 August 2020, a day after Vinay Dube ended a six-month CEO stint at Go First, he decided it was time to give wings to a life-long dream: start an airline. It didn’t matter that the country was in the midst of a lockdown, the aviation business was among the worst affected and airline owners and investors were wishing they had bet their money somewhere else.  Dube seemed to care less. Now, two years down the line, India’s newest airline Akasa Air took off from Mumbai airport on its maiden flight to Ahmedabad on 7 August. In doing so, the airline’s 55-year-old founder CEO proved naysayers—who had wondered if someone who had spent years abroad with American Airlines and Delta Air Lines could navigate the highly regulated Indian aviation industry—wrong.  It helped that in …