The Hindu Business Line : Air Deccan ropes in expat as COO

A new expatriate COO, 600 new flights and 60 aircraft over the next five years; a $10-million investment for a hangar apart from an addition of a newly tapped market of three million passengers by April 2006 — these are a few bits of Capt G. R. Gopinath's "explosive growth plan" for his two-year-old budget airline.

He has roped in Mr Warwick Brady of Ryanair, another low-budget European carrier, as the airline's new Chief Operating Officer. Mr Brady is to join the company by this month-end.

With a fleet strength of 30 aircraft to be reached by this year-end, "it would make us the second largest private sector airline in the country," Capt Gopinath, Managing Director of Air Deccan, said on Tuesday at the launch of an e-ticketing arrangement.

He attributed the lack of engineering maintenance infrastructure to the airline's poor flight schedules. The new hangar coming up on 65,000 sq. ft. at the Chennai airport will be completed in six months. The airline has also contracted Scandinavian Airlines for the total maintenance of its fleet. Capt Gopinath hoped the two measures would start telling on its schedules.

For the current year, Air Deccan expects to achieve a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore, up from Rs 350 crore in 2004-05 (out of 1.3 million passengers in the first year).

It currently operates five Airbus A320s and 12 ATR 42s. Late last year, it ordered 62 new aircraft — 32 A320s and 30 ATR-72s — which are to be delivered over the next 60 months at almost one aircraft a month.

The immediate plans include a Hyderabad-Mumbai flight in September; a couple of new but unconnected towns such as Nashik, Raipur and Jamshedpur, or Rajahmundry and Vijayawada every month. Air Deccan recently added three North-Eastern towns to its list.

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