Akasa Heads to Hanoi as Iran War Freezes Gulf Expansion Plans
Photo Caption: An Akasa Air Boeing 737-8 taking off. Boeing/Akasa Air
Skift Take
Akasa built five of six international routes into the Middle East. With the Gulf in conflict, Southeast Asia has now become the Indian carrier’s viable growth corridor.
Akasa Air will be entering Vietnam with direct Mumbai-Hanoi flights starting September 4.
Hanoi becomes Akasa's seventh international destination, with four weekly non-stop flights from Mumbai. Other overseas routes connect to the Middle East – Doha, Jeddah, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City. And Phuket was the Indian carrier’s first Southeast Asian destination.
The ambition had been to deepen the Gulf footprint, wait for bilaterals to open, and keep building westward.
Last year, the Middle East looked central to Akasa's international story. In an interview with Skift in November, then-CCO Praveen Iyer outlined an ambitious Middle Eastern agenda including putting Sharjah in the pipeline for early 2026 operati
