King of no frills on good times
The Hindu : Captain G.R. Gopinath’s office is as Spartan as ever. Dressed in his trademark half-sleeved shirt, he welcomes me apologising for the hour I had to wait for him.
Capt. Gopinath’s brainchild Air Deccan, fondly referred to as the “Udupi hotel of the airline industry”, was not so long ago subject to one of the biggest acquisitions in Indian aviation history by Vijay Mallya’s UB Group. The airline now sports a new livery with an identity similar to Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines and has been rechristened Simplifly Deccan. The captain is all set to leave for Mallya’s party in Mumbai to mark the makeover.
Air Deccan’s logo of the two hands has made way for the kingfisher, but what about the effect on the common man the airline was created to service? “The common man was our mascot. We were using him wherever we wanted to convey an image of the company without putting it into words. He will always be there,” Capt. Gopinath says.
The Air Deccan story needs no introduction. “We have built a company which has changed aviation forever in this country. It will be there a long time after I am gone. It has touched the lives of millions and changed the landscape of the country. We are not a regional airline, we are a national airline going to the regions,” he says.
He goes on to add he gets his adrenaline rush from connecting the “other India” and points to the fact that he flies to 66 destinations across the country. The maiden flight was in August 2003, which infamously suffered an engine fire. But what took the airline to the masses was the “promise” of flying at just Re. one.
“One day I just said to the board I will sell tickets at Re. one. It was not a gimmick. If the seats were going empty, I might as well put someone in…More
