• Offbeat

I still bear a grudge against Captain G.R. Gopinath. Why, if it wasn’t for his no-frills business model, I wouldn’t have had to bear the strong pungent flavors in the aircraft minutes after we were soaring in the skies. Barely were we settled in our seats and out came packed snacks and lunches from noisy plastic bags and the cabin air would be full of smells, just like it is on long-distance trains. There were no newspapers to read; the management had decided against them since it meant precious minutes wasted as the crew folded them back and tucked them back in the seat pockets. But you could always play the guessing game of who’s eating what. Dhokla, two seats to the right, sabji, parathas in the front seat, biryani and kathi rolls on the left aisle seat; two South Indian mamis merrily downing their idlis with podi in the front seat. And don’t even get me started about the lady next to me, trying to coax her child to eat stuffed, and smelly, mooli parathas.
My parents, however, would have none of the criticism. For, it was thanks to Air Deccan—Captain Gopinath, my father insists, as if it was the individual who transported them through the skies on his own shoulders—that the middle-class couple from a sleepy town in Uttarakhand flew down to Mumbai, where their son had landed a plush job with a multinational and had invited them over. My father, the ever proud pahari, turned down my brother’s offer of sending them the tickets. Instead, he walked down to the nearest Internet café, asked the chubby owner to book him return flights from Jolly Grant Airport (near Dehradun) to Delhi and then from Delhi on to Mumbai. “Without burning a hole in my pocket,” he points out to his well-worn olive-green winter jacket.
He is right. Not only was the trip pocket-friendly, the teacher couple saved precious time—they would have spent four days just travelling back and forth in trains. Instead—they visited temples and shopping malls, and spent the rest of their time convincing my brother to get married.
But this isn’t about my family. And yet, it is about innumerable such middle-class families who realized their dream of boarding a flight—a dream they didn’t even know they had. And for this, Captain Gopinath deserves all the adulation that came his way. But then the die-hard entrepreneur was audacious enough to chase ideas most didn’t know could be dreamt, let alone realized. Legend has it that his epiphany moment came when he was in the U.S., aboard a Southwest Airlines flight, with a carpenter for company.
Nothing came in the way for the man once he set his eye on the goal—to make flying affordable for Indians, too. The numbers he churned were there for all to see. In 2002, as many as 15 million Indians made use of long-distance trains as compared to 50,000 who boarded flights. Even if 5 per cent of the train travellers were tempted to fly, it would mean a boom in the aviation industry. It was hardly a smooth ride, however. Bankers refused to fund the venture and some even considered the idea as bizarre. Aircraft manufacturers were more than skeptical and even the government didn’t warm up to the idea. Except for the Chandrababu Naidu, who suggested to Captain Gopinath that he start daily flights from Hyderabad to the cities of Vijaywada and Rajamundry. Until now, Captain Gopinath’s helicopter service catered to the segment.
With his two friends, Capt K J Samuel and Vishnu Raval, Captain Gopinath launched Air Deccan in 2003. And then there was fire. On September 23, 2003, Air Deccan’s maiden flight from Hyderabad to Vijaywada caught fire on the runway before take-off. The flight had prominent politicians such as former BJP President Venkaiah Naidu and the then Minister of State for Civil Aviation Rajiv Pratap Rudy. But the shock and horror of the incident did little to dampen the excitement about this new airline whose tagline was Simplifly. It’s almost like we Indians will try anything if it’s cheaper.
The entire gameplan of a commercial airline was turned on its head—smaller aircraft were leased and not bought, a uniform passenger class was introduced, flights to smaller cities were introduced and internet ticketing was introduced, while travel agencies were done away with. The talk of the town, however, was using every possible space in the aircraft for advertising—the roof, headrests, storage bins, washrooms, food trays and even the exterior of the plane. The airline boasted of a turnaround time of a mere 20 minutes for its ATRs and 35 minutes for its Airbus. Everything was quicker—from disposal of waste and cleaning the aircraft to loading and unloading of food.
And then there was my favorite grouse—you had to buy refreshments on flight. The cabin crew was given incentives to sell potato chips, the ubiquitous samosas and sundry other snacks. The Indian consumer, however, isn’t called one of the most difficult customers for nothing. “Why should I pay Rs.40 for soggy samosas when I can ask my wife to pack me alu-puri and heeng ka achaar?” he asked, assuming everyone would salivate at the smell of pungent asafoetida. And so came into being the plastic packets people clutched to their chests while boarding Air Deccan flights.
Dyna fares were introduced, which meant that the earlier you booked your ticket on a flight, the lesser it would cost you. Apart from that, there were marketing moves that made it to newspaper headlines—introductory tickets that cost you Re.1 to Rs.500 and even cutting down prices when fuel prices increased. People waited for the Re.1 ticket flights and jumped the minute they were offered.
In the first year of its operations, Air Deccan’s turnover was Rs.400 crore, it had flown more than 1.4 million people with 132 flights to 38 airports. Air Deccan’s website saw 20 million daily transactions. It used petrol pumps for ticket distribution and introduced the country’s first mobile phone ticketing. Captain Gopinath told its crew and pilots to be proud of the fact that unlike other airline staff, they didn’t stay at five-star hotels but in guest houses, since they were the harbingers of change, something no luxury living can replace.
Air Deccan was the flavor of the season. Ironically, however, despite the accolades and pioneering efforts, the airlines hardly made it big when it came to the balancesheet. Its much-anticipated IPO in 2006 failed to excite investors at a time when stock markets were volatile. In the meantime, skies had opened up and others jumped to join the party.
And then Captain Gopinath did something that must’ve made perfect sense to him—sold Deccan Airlines at a price of Rs.550 crore to Vijay Mallya in 2007. Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines was barely two years old and was scouting around for ways to grow. The clever move gave Mallya several advantages—it killed the biggest competitor, Kingfisher gained in terms of marketshare, routes and fleet and last but not the least, was eligible for overseas flying licence, given to airlines with more than five years of experience.
And clever though Mallya may seem, he made quite a few mistakes with the airline. Introducing free meals and free travel for infants to new airport coaches and better interiors may have helped him make the “King of Good Times” connect, but it proved to be utterly wrong for the low-cost image airlines had. People could not differentiate between the company’s full-service and low-cost variants. And when the rechristened Kingfisher Red was made slightly costlier, people didn’t see the point in sticking around and opted for other low-cost airlines. So now the liquor lord has decided to do away with the low-cost operations altogether. A smarter move for the businessman since it hardly makes sense to pull dead weight.
But did it have to be this way? It was an airline that helped the most common of Indians realize their dreams—thousands of students who wanted to be home for a quick break, honeymooning couples who could hold hands during the flight without prying eyes, the nervous grandmother flying with her granddaughter and giggling like a school girl as the plane took off, and thousands of frequent fliers who could now fly back the same day to their home and children and the company not cringing at the bill. My father, meanwhile, refuses to talk about it. “Such is life,” he says, in his philosophical tone. He’s also gotten used to other low-cost airlines and the love for Air Deccan and Captain Gopinath has waned somewhat. “But I’d be the first one to line up for a ticket if he ever comes back,” he says. So come back, Captain Gopinath. All will be forgiven—even the mooli parathas.

Tags:
Air Deccan, Kingfisher Airlines, Vijay Mallya