Mr. Gopinath You have acheived your dream. No matter what others say. You have done what no one even dreamt of doin it. As far as present merger is concerned , people deserve what they aspired for. When you started offering low fares every one wanted to fly. Later they expected same quality of service that was offered by jet or Indian in your airlines. How much criticism Deccan faced everyone knows. Now let them pay higher fare and get it. Thanks Mr. Gopinath. Its because of YOU that people could even dream of flying. There will be n number of airlines in future. But the credit for starting the revolution goes to YOU and Deccan.
Capt Gopinath should have sold airlines to the Tatas who would have made it one of the biggest airlines in India. Mallya is not exactly in the league of Tatas and looks at airlines as promotion for his main breweries business.
While Kingfisher may still do well, Tatas would have retained the low cost Deccan properly and they already have huge expertise in aviation through Taj Air and Taj SATS air catering. Capt Gopinath had also not done a good job of running the airline properly with an emphasis on costs only and ultimately he had to bow out.
RE:Gopinath did not understand Mallya
by arun kumar on Dec 31, 2007 03:13 PM Permalink
Well may be but what ever he is doing he is doing it very good, He is doing good in Avaition as well, May become the best soon, Let us consider him as an indian first,whoes lifting the image of Indian Aviation HAts off to Mallaya
RE:Gopinath did not understand Mallya
by Shouvik Dev on Dec 31, 2007 02:49 PM Permalink
With all due respect Sir, nobody buys an airline just for the sake of promoting their liquor.
Well, the only thing i can say is that "all is fair in love and war". Not so long ago, there was a day when Sir Richard Branson had to sell his Virgin Music which he build over the last 25 years to fund his new venture - Virgin Atlantic. In his book, Sir says that he went to through a lot of emotional thought process the night he had to decide. In the morning, he made up his mind and sold Virgin Music and today, we know it was a wise decision. Capt. Gopinath had a dream to make the India middle-class fly and this is no small dream. His vision was great, but there have been few downs which came his way. In following a vision, we need to ensure that the plan for execution is well laid out. Otherwise, dreams come true but would not sustain on the long run in this competitive world. Only one thing i can say - "People who have created success, can re-create it again" and I wish Captain all the very best. Probably in the short run, we can see another middle-class dream coming true :)
I am one of those middle class millions who watched Gopinath`s dream of affordable air travel for the common people of this country taking shape into reality. My worst fears when Gopinath joined hands with Mallaya have come true today. All the good things come to grief in this country and SIMPLY FLY is the latest one.
Air Deccan as a business model was bound to fail, despite all the hype of it being an airline allowing middle class to fly at rail ticket prices. Yes, they were able to do that for some time, but as can be expected they ran into huge losses, running the airline at such fares with publicly raised money and the original promoter has coolly sold his stake to the most premium airline of the country who has ensured the death of its low cost concept by revamping everything including the low cost fares after he took stake in Air Deccan. Now Air Deccan is no longer "Simplifly", but their airfares are flying high for sure now.
Almost two weeks after Lucknow Delhi flight was started by Air Deccan I travelled for the first time on the flight. It cost me only 750 bucks. The interior of the plane was minty new , the staff was extremely polite and the lone airhostess deserved to be a supermodel and yet was very polite. it was a bit turbulent since the weather was bad and I had never travelled in such a small plane before but all in all it was a nice experience and many times worth the money. But I knew that this man is a technical person and blo...y indians would do him in. They need someone smart someone who can exploit them fully Mr. Gopinath was not that kind of guy. I do hope there will be some kind turnaround for him. I suppose if he uses the helicopter branch more fully maybe he will again do something for us enriched by his recent experiences. Good luck to him and I really enjoyed the more than six flights I have taken till date on Deccan and due to take two more this week itself. Bravo
If Mallaya had not bought it the dream would have turned into a nightmare. If he wanted to live the dream he should not have sold the stake. He did it because he knew the consequences.
RE:RE:Really Sad
by SHYAMA PRASAD on Dec 31, 2007 02:57 PM Permalink
Mallya ca nnot achive his dreams . Only Ambanis can dream and achiceve it. Mallya can only enjoy good looking gals of Air Deccan. He is a Ever Ever enjoyer - enjoyer. Ha ha Haaa,
I had decided long back of not flying air deccan ever again. I had booked my ticket for Chennai- Bangalore flight @ 14:30hrs. There were other deccan flights the same day at 16:30, 19:30, 22:30. I was there at the airport at 12:30PM to be told that the flight is delayed by 2 hrs and will now fly at 16:30. The flight got delayed, delayed, delayed and took off at 23:00!!! They had made all the paxs of 14:30, 16:30, 19:30 and 22:30 to fly in the same flight since the cost of flying 4 times with 20-25 passengers each would be costlier for them!!! Horrendous. Even if I had traveeld by road at 12:30, I would've been in Blore by 18:00 max. The same was experienced by one of my colleagues on Mumbai-delhi flight. Low cost flying shoulnt be with cheap tricks. I had not bought the tickets coz it was cheap, but it was the only flight to blore at that time. How much I wished I had taken a diff flight.
