Skift Travel News Blog

Semi-private jet company Aero has raised $65 million in funding to expand its network, and to service demand on existing routes.

Currently it operates flights to Aspen, Los Cabos and Sun Valley from private terminals in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the U.S, as well as Ibiza, Mykonos, and Nice from London’s Farnborough Airport

The Series B round was co-led by Albacore Capital Group and returning investors Expa and Keyframe Capital, as well as new investment from Capital One Ventures (which last year invested in popular booking app Hopper.)

Unlike other jet services, Aero aims to stand out by focusing on connecting millennials with destinations that offer Instagram-worthy experiences. It owns and operates its aircraft, and sells individual seats on flights to leisure destinations around the world.

Aero CEO Uma Subramanian formerly worked on Airbus’ helicopter service Voom.Flights, which closed down in 2020.

The startup previously raised $20 million in Series A funding in March last year, and before that $16 million in 2019.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article described Aero as a private jet company, and said it did not own or operate its own aircraft, and provides ticket resale for flights on registered air carriers on selected routes

Akasa Air, India’s newest airline, will be taking to the skies on August 7 with its first flight connecting the country’s financial center — Mumbai with Ahmedabad in western India.

Akasa will operate 28 weekly flights between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. From August 13 onwards, the airline will start operating 28 weekly flights between Bengaluru, more popularly known as India’s Silicon Valley, and Kochi — a city in the coastal state of Kerala.

The bookings for flights are now open. The airline that claims to have India’s youngest and greenest fleet, will be operating the brand-new Boeing 737 Max aircraft on both routes. Akasa plans to add two aircraft to its fleet each month, in its first year.

In an interview with Skift, Vinay Dube, the airline’s founder and CEO, had highlighted that the airline’s network strategy would focus on establishing a strong pan-India presence linking metropolitan cities to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across the country.

“We will adopt a phased approach to support our network expansion plans, progressively connecting more cities, as we add two aircraft to our fleet each month, in our first year,” said Praveen Iyer, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Akasa Air.

Calling the airline unlike anything experienced in the category thus far, Dube reiterated the importance of providing an efficient customer service, a reliable and dependable network, and affordable fares.

The airline will be offering buy-on-board meal service through Cafe Akasa.

After offering financial incentives to carriers to fly “unprofitable” routes, Saudi Arabia is now luring airlines by cutting airport charges by as much as 35 percent in its bid to compete with the world’s biggest airline hubs, most of which happen to be in the Middle East region.

Airport charges at three major airports — Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam — would be reduced by anywhere between 10 percent and 35 percent, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said. The decreased airport charges would be coming into force later this year.

To maximize growth, airports in the kingdom would be further allowed to reduce charges below the announced caps, the civil aviation authority announced at the Farnborough Air Show. 

In its pivot from oil to diversify into other sectors, Saudi Arabia is looking at tourism in a big way to bolster the country’s economy and then there’s the ambitious goal to attract 100 million tourists by 2030.

This development comes days after Saudi’s civil aviation authority also announced the decision to open the nation’s airspace to all commercial carriers that meet the country’s civil aviation authority’s overflying requirements.

Under the decision, Saudi airspace is now open to flights operated through Israel and by Israeli carriers, a decision which complements Saudi’s efforts to consolidate its position as a global hub. 

US President Joe Biden called the decision “the first tangible step in the path of what I hope will eventually be a broader normalization of relations.” 

An American Airlines computer glitch threatened to cause more disruption for U.S. airports during the July 4 weekend.

A problem in the carrier’s system that enables pilots to add, drop, or trade routes briefly wiped out 12,000 flights scheduled to depart in July. American said in a statement on Saturday it was reinstating most of those flights, adding it didn’t expect the issue to impact its operations.

However, the Allied Pilots Association, the labor union that represents American’s pilots, said on Sunday that it’s discussing extra pay for pilots whose flights were mistakenly cancelled because of the glitch. The union also told pilots that adding those flights back to the pilots’ schedules violated its contract, but it would work with American to tackle the issue and find solutions to what it describes as an overwhelming scheduling system.

American and the APA are in process of negotiating a new contract, and the carrier offered its pilots a roughly 17 percent pay raise on July 30.

The International Air Transport Association‘s board of governors has appointed RwandAir CEO Yvonne Manzi Makolo to serve as its chair, making her the first woman ever to lead the global airline agency.

Makolo, who has led RwandAir since 2018, will serve a one-year term as IATA’s chair from June 2023, succeeding Mehmet Tevfik Nane, the managing director of discount Turkish carrier Pegasus. Nane took over the role of IATA chair from JetBlue Airways CEO Robin Hayes on June 20 during the organization’s annual general meeting.

Makolo is one of the few women holding a senior role at a major airline. IATA estimates that close to 9 percent of airline CEOs are women.