Akasa Air will raise pilot salaries by up to 20% from 1 January 2027, alongside higher guaranteed flying hours and additional annual leave, as it tries to hold on to cockpit crew in India’s fiercely competitive aviation hiring market.
The four-year-old carrier, which currently operates a fleet of 45 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft and employs more than 800 pilots, is revising both fixed salaries and per-hour flying payouts. The maximum increase of around 20% will apply from January 2027, according to multiple reports citing sources familiar with the plan. The airline is also raising the minimum guaranteed flying hours per month to 50.
Alongside the salary bump, Akasa Air is raising minimum annual leave for pilots to 42 days and introducing new rostering patterns such as the “25/9” and “6-2-6-3” formats. New pilot bases are being planned in Cochin and Kolkata to improve work-life balance for crew. The airline has not issued an official public statement, and the revision details were shared with pilots internally.
The latest hike builds on an earlier retention package. In March 2026, Akasa announced the second edition of its long-term incentive plan offering up to ₹25 lakh to captains and trainee captains, with payouts spread across 2027, 2028 and 2029 and conditional on continued service. Sanket Limaye, Director of Flight Operations at Akasa Air, had told pilots in an internal communication at the time that the airline was launching the second edition of its LTIP to curb the poaching of trained cockpit crew by rivals.
The compensation changes come as Akasa expands its fleet, adds new routes and prepares to grow its international network. Rivals Air India and IndiGo have both placed large aircraft orders and are hiring aggressively, while Gulf carriers continue to run recruitment drives aimed at experienced Indian pilots. Pilot attrition has been an acute problem for the airline in the past, with at least 19 pilots quitting Akasa in a single month in 2023 without serving notice periods as rivals ramped up hiring.
