In conversation with Editor Ankur Sharma, The News Strike, Aditya Kalke, Founder of Airattix, highlights that Indian cities are significantly underestimating storage by treating it as a convenience rather than a core component of urban infrastructure, despite rapid urbanization and shrinking living spaces. He notes that the growing demands of e-commerce, gig economy services, and last-mile logistics are making flexible storage solutions critical, yet urban planning continues to overlook warehouse, micro-storage, and decentralized storage hubs—leading to inefficiencies, higher delivery costs, and congestion.
1. Are Indian cities underestimating storage as a core urban infrastructure problem rather than a convenience service?
Indian cities continue to treat storage like a convenience instead of an essential form of urban infrastructure. The fast pace of urbanization, where the current urban population in India stands at 540 million and is projected to increase exponentially, is putting more strain on space. Smaller living spaces and the proliferation of e-commerce and gig economy services are making flexible storage even more relevant than before. However, despite this, urban planning has been ignoring the need for warehouse spaces, micro-storage, and last-mile storage hubs. This leads to inefficiencies in logistics, higher delivery costs, and congestion, as cities struggle with inadequate and storage infrastructure.
2. Is peer-to-peer storage a real behavioural shift or still an early adopter use case in India?
Peer-to-peer storage in India is moving beyond an early adopter use case and steadily becoming a real behavioural shift. At Airattix, the platform reflects how consumers are beginning to view unused space as valuable, monetizing unused spaces while offering income opportunities to space providers. Whether it’s household goods, luggage, car parking, or moving services, these solutions are becoming more convenient and affordable. As accessibility improves, peer-to-peer storage is likely to become a mainstream part of urban living.
3. What does the rise of flexible living mean for the future of personal storage demand?
The rise of flexible living is reshaping personal storage demand because lifestyles are becoming more dynamic and space is becoming more important. As people move into smaller living units and adopt flexible living options such as co-living or working from home, there is a requirement for extra space outside one’s living unit for storing possessions that do not have immediate use in their lives. Self-storage facilities provide people with an opportunity to optimally use space in their living environments by enabling them to store those possessions that do not occupy much of their time.
4. As D2C brands scale, will distributed micro-warehousing outperform centralised warehousing models?
As D2C brands scale, distributed micro‑warehousing is increasingly outperforming centralized models, especially where delivery speed and customer experience matter most. Micro warehouses, compact storage hubs located near demand centres, drastically shorten last‑mile delivery distances, enabling same‑day or next‑day fulfillment and reducing transportation costs by up to 50% due to shorter routes.
While centralized warehouses still offer lower broad inventory costs, they often result in longer transit times and slower deliveries, which can hurt customer satisfaction in fast‑moving markets. For modern D2C brands, multi location warehousing improves speed, responsiveness, and service levels, making it a winning strategy as delivery expectations rise.
5. In a peer-to-peer storage marketplace, is trust the biggest product challenge?
In a peer-to-peer storage marketplace, trust isn’t really a barrier, it's more of a powerful opportunity. When people feel comfortable enough to store their belongings with someone else, it shows that trust can be built with the right approach. Simple things like verified users, honest reviews, secure payments, and basic protection for items go a long way in making users feel at ease. And as more people have good experiences, that trust naturally grows. Over time, it helps create a strong, reliable community where both customers and hosts feel confident. So instead of holding the product back, trust actually becomes the reason it can grow and succeed.
6. How can AI optimise unused urban spaces for storage, parking, and micro-warehousing in real time?
At Airattix, our platform can underutilize spaces into valuable storage assets in real time. Through the use of cutting-edge technology that helps in improving the efficiency of search, providing a better user experience, and enabling real-time space management, the platform will help users find available spaces easily and quickly using a user-friendly interface. With its consumer-to-consumer model for and storage solutions, it will facilitate the monetization of underused spaces, as well as the booking and management of such spaces online. For businesses, it supports order fulfillment and warehousing solutions, making it a one-stop destination for scalable storage needs across urban and semi-urban regions.
7. Could predictive AI reshape how cities allocate parking and storage capacity?
Predictive AI can reshape how cities allocate storage capacity by enabling real-time decision-making and pattern recognition across large datasets. By analyzing real-time and historical data on demand, location and usage patterns, AI can forecast demand with greater accuracy and reduce forecasting errors by up to 20-50%. This allows dynamic allocation of underutilised spaces for storage, or micro-warehousing instead of relying on static planning. It can improve service levels by 15-20% and reduce logistics costs by 10–15%, while optimising limited urban land, improving accessibility, and reducing congestion in rapidly growing cities.
8. Will AI-led demand forecasting make hyperlocal storage more efficient than traditional warehouses?
AI‑powered demand forecasting can make hyperlocal storage significantly more efficient than traditional warehouse models. Traditional forecasting relies on static historical averages and often fails to respond quickly to local demand changes, leading to stockouts or excess inventory. AI-powered systems use machine learning models to analyse historical sales, real‑time inventory, and external signals like promotions, weather, and neighbourhood trends to predict demand with much higher accuracy and speed. This enables hyperlocal storage networks to dynamically position stock where it’s needed most, reduce waste, and improve replenishment responsiveness. As a result, AI enables hyperlocal facilities to serve customers faster and with fewer mismatches between supply and demand.
9. Could Airattix evolve beyond storage into a larger urban utility layer for cities?
At Airattix, we have the potential of progressing from storage facilities to a more comprehensive urban utility platform. By making use of the underutilized spaces, it can offer much more than storage services; it can provide warehousing, storage and commercial opportunities among others. By incorporating smart technologies and using real-time data, Airattix can improve urban infrastructure, reduce congestion, and maximize the available space. Given that the demand for last-mile logistics, shared transportation, and urban infrastructure is on the rise, there is a great opportunity for us to emerge as an urban utility platform offering multiple services.
10. Are Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities likely to leapfrog metros in adoption because of real estate inefficiencies?
At Airattix, we see Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as strong growth markets that directly align with our model. These cities are seeing a growing demand for reliable storage solutions, especially from individuals and families who are relocating or in redevelopment. Our solutions are designed to support these transition phases. At the same time, lower real real estate costs in these markets enable us to expand our storage infrastructure efficiently and serve a wider customer base.
At the same time, rising urbanisation, e-commerce growth, and increasing digital adoption are driving demand for storage, parking, and micro-warehousing in these regions. For us, this isn’t just relevant; it's a key opportunity to scale faster, build early market leadership, and create a wider, more accessible network beyond metros.
11. If urban land remains scarce, will access-based infrastructure models outperform ownership-led models?
If urban land continues to become scarce, access-based infrastructure models are likely to do better than ownership-led ones. In growing cities where space is limited and expensive, owning everything simply doesn’t make sense anymore. People and businesses are slowly shifting towards using what they need, when they need it, instead of locking up space and money in ownership. Access-based models bring in flexibility, reduce costs, and make better use of available space by ensuring things don’t just sit unused. With technology making on-demand access easier than ever, this approach feels more practical and convenient for modern urban living. In many ways, it’s a smarter and more sustainable way to adapt to the realities of crowded cities.
