Captains Courageous

But Air Deccan is everywhere these days8212;on 21-inch screens, in fresh early morning print, and if you happen to be in and around Bangalore, its off-white ATR-42-320 Turbo-Props are up there whistling in the skies.

And all this brouhaha is over an airline which has just two aircraft operational at present; another four will be added by December.

The buzz has everything to do with simple economics. Its fares are nearly half that of other airlines. Bangalore to Chennai, for example, will be Rs 1,650 as against Jet8217;s Rs 3,405, and should one be heading further south towards Coimbatore, that8217;s Rs 1,600. The heartening thing is it also aims to go national. And someday, Gopinath says, 8220;Air Deccan will, to the extent possible, help every one fly.8221;

The flip side, if there is indeed one, is passengers won8217;t get to fuss over the vague pleasures of airline food, and there8217;ll be just one air hostess to smile at you on all their flights.

Feeder airlines like Air Deccan8212;in aviation parlance, services that connect towns and cities from hubs hitherto unserviced by air8212;are not new to India. ModiLuft, NEPC and Gujarat Airways, to name a few, made a debut in the 8217;90s, but flatlined due to a fatal mixture of mismanagement, high operational costs and blinkered policies. What this one brings to the table is an entirely new dimension of also being a low-cost airline, modelled on the likes of UK8217;s Ryanair and Southwest in the US.

8220;There is choice all around, so why can8217;t it be the same with flying? Try booking an AC ticket from Bangalore to Coimbatore and you8217;ll understand. Right now, we will be connecting towns that are business or tourist destinations, and our fares are little more than the Rajdhani. The idea is to extend this nation-wide. A typical route later on could be Bangalore-Puttaparthi-Mumbai or Bangalore-Hampi-Goa,8221; feels Gopinath. The reactions this elicits yo-yo between the extremely cautionary to the very enthusiastic, and, as is the case with uncharted territory, a few middle-of-the-road views. Most, though, appear sceptical.

Lalit Seth of Raj Travels, who once ran Raj Airways, a single aircraft operation in 1993 from Mumbai to Chandigarh, feels the airline will find it difficult to consistently generate capacities on most of its routes, and this is where it8217;ll differ from its Western models who generally run on trunk routes. Also, he says, 8220;It makes sense for an already established player to bring in no-frills feeder services. Given their seating capacity of 50 per aircraft, they won8217;t be saving much with just one hostess or by not providing food.8221;

Back in Air Deccan8217;s airport office in Bangalore, done up in bright blue and yellow, the drone of take-offs and landings provide a reverberating background score. Gopinath and Samuel, both 52 and balding, friends for the last 36 years, and National Defence Academy course mates, look back for sometime even as they chart their journey ahead.

8220;I left the army in 1979, it was proving too restrictive, and I wanted to do a lot more,8221; says the bespectacled Gopinath, who practised silkworm rearing and drip irrigation in his village Gorur in Karnataka8217;s Hassan district, before moving on to landscaping in and around Bangalore. His work on different forms of nature-friendly farming fetched him the Rolex Award for ecological silk farming in 1996.

His friend moved into Bangalore in the beginning of the 8217;90s, taking up a job in Assam as a helicopter pilot with the ONGC; for every two months spent in Assam, Samuel, who also flew Chetak and Cheetah copters in the Army, could spend a month at home.

And it wasn8217;t as if Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar Gopinath and Kannanthanan Joseph Samuel, or Gopi and Sam that8217;s what they call each other got together and hit upon this swell idea to launch a heli-charter service. What followed were years of apprehension and vacillation, as much a part of a fledgling venture as the toasts to success afterwards. 8220;Gopi used to tell me to use his tiny office, his ancient 386, and get on with something. But my answer would always be 8216;sure, but just what do I do?8217;8221; says Samuel, laughter exploding all over him. 8220;Things took a turn when I went to Vietnam on one of my trips. South East Asia has this huge business of heli-charters and I wondered, why not try out the same here,8221; says Gopinath.

It did sound like a plan, but they didn8217;t know how to go about actually doing it, and the best part is, neither did anybody else. Not the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, not all the babus in the capital, and not a single ministry concerned with this sort of a thing.

Today, nearly eight-odd years after they began work on their venture, Gopinath and Samuel are clearly amused by their ignorance. 8220;Back then it was our sheer naivete that propelled us forward. We spent months, trying to find somebody who could give us the lowdown on the rules and regulations to be followed as regards heli-charters,8221; says Samuel.

To cut a long haul short, the roadblocks and the ambiguities were successfully resolved, and in September 1997, Deccan Aviation was ready to fly from Bangalore8217;s Jakkur Airport. The equipment was a single Bell helicopter, and the office8212;a tent. 8220;The first few weeks were crazy. We tied up with a tourist resort and offered people joyrides which would end with lunch,8221; recalls Samuel, who quips that he took up a job with a courier firm a month before the launch just in case something went wrong. Currently, with a fleet of nine helicopters and two private charter airplanes, and the tag of being India8217;s largest private charter company, it doesn8217;t take much intelligence to realise the obvious.

What helps them keep their latest venture8217;s fares cheap, says Gopinath, is a low aircraft-to-employee ratio, the Karnataka government8217;s support the state has brought down the sales tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel from 25 to 4 per cent, quicker turnaround times, the AAI8217;s discounts to aircraft below 21 tonnes, and usage of small airports.

Says Ashwini Kakkar, CEO, Thomas Cook India, 8220;The routes they have now should bring them enough traffic. A head to head with the major airlines could only make the situation complex.8221;

A view also held by a former high-profile feeder airline player: 8220;Their savings will be significant on optimum capacities, but smaller sectors makes most sense.8221;

Meanwhile, amidst the hope and all the hype, Samuel signs off with a promise to bring down prices further. 8220;Our ultimate aim, once we generate capacities, is to cut fares even further.8221; Which, by all means, is a thought lot more appetising than airline food.