Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Akasa Air unveils craft livery

Mumbai: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed ultralow-cost airline Akasa Air set Twitter aflutter on Monday when it unveiled the first look of its aircraft livery.

“Can’t keep calm! Say hi to our QP-pie!,” the firm tweeted from its official @AkasaAir handle, sending AvGeeks, or aviation aficionados, into a frenzy. QP is the airline’s code; similar to 6E for IndiGo or AI for Air India. A series of tweets unveiled the livery, eliciting responses from many including Sanjiv Kapoor, the CEO of Jet Airways, the other airline that is all set for launch as early as September.

“Indeed a smart colour scheme and also smartly a nostalgic shout-out to colours we all grew up with: Indian Airlines (especially the last avatar of the IC livery). Well done, Team Akasa! (This message is from the AvGeek in me)” tweeted Kapoor, who is leading the revamp of Jalan Kalrock Consortium-promoted Jet Airways.

Meanwhile, Kapoor announced the appointments of the airline’s senior leadership team: Prabh Sharan Singh as chief digital officer, HR Jagannath as vice-president (VP) for engineering, Mark Turner, VPinflight product and services, and Vishesh Khanna, VP-sales, distribution, and customer engagement.

While Jagannath was the Chief Executive Officer of Air India Engineering Service, Turner led Jet Airways’ inflight services team between 2008 and 2011 when the airline was at its peak growth.

Kapoor also assured former employees of Jet Airways on Twitter that they would be given a preference in recruitment. Jet Airways was grounded in April 2019, and went into insolvency, plunging most of the 15,000 employees into unemployment.