Firstly, wavedash should have its own button. Consider it a "quick dash" where you go backwards or forwards without changing the way your character faces and allow using moves during the dash itself. This pretty much emulates wavedash as its own command. Well, except for in the air.
But an actually new thing would be an "aerial wavedash" probably just called "air dash". It is a very quick horizontal motion in the air like directional air dodge, except like the grounded version, you can use any aerial during the dash itself without having to turn around. And if you air dash into the ground, you transition into a wavedash, if only briefly. The cost of air dash is that it would count as one of your jumps, but it is a better double jump for those characters with bad horizontal recovery.