From the cockpit: Meet Vinay Dube, co-founder and CEO of Akasa Air

Avid golfer and tea aficionado, Dube speaks to Aneesh Phadnis about food, family and flights

Soft-spoken and unassuming, Vinay Dube is not your typical Indian airline owner. A first-generation entrepreneur, he worked in airlines in the US and India before donning the promoter’s hat this year.

Akasa Air, the airline he founded with his former Jet Airways colleagues, made its maiden flight on August 7 this year. Its launch was heralded by civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia as “a new dawn” for Indian aviation. The mood was cheerful and optimistic. But tragedy struck just a week later with the death of the airline’s key investor, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

It must have been a huge setback for