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Post Info TOPIC: Air Deccan to start campaign on Sep 19 to reach Number one slot


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Air Deccan to start campaign on Sep 19 to reach Number one slot
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www.uninews.com


Air Deccan to start campaign on Sep 19 to reach Number one slot


Bangalore, Sep 16 (UNI)


India’s first low cost carrier, Air Deccan will trigger a massive campaign from September 19 to dislodge Jet Airways from the number one slot.


 


Announcing the campaign named ’WOW’’, Air Deccan Managing Director Capt G R Gopinath and Chief Operating Officer Warwick Brady told newsmen here that from September 19 the airline would also offer a free ticket to its passengers if the flight is delayed beyond three hours, except in cases where delay is caused by fog. For a cancelled flight, Air deccan would put its passengers on the next flight, on another airline, subject to availability.


With a fleet of 37 aircraft, including 12 Airbus A 320s, Air Deccan currently enjoy a market share of 21.2 per cent being the second behind Jet Airways which had a clear ten per cent lead.


Growing at 0.5 per cent rate a month, Air Deccan aimed to capture the slot of being the best carrier with customer satisfaction by January next year


Capt Gopinath said ‘‘its inevitability and reality’’ that we will emerge number one carrier in the country, despite the hurdles posed by competition and bureaucracy.


Mr Brady said by the end of the current fiscal, the airliner would have 45 aircraft and by fiscal 2008 the number would go up to 57. Capt Gopinath said in October three Airbus aircraft and two ATRs would join the fleet.


 


 


Wish someone would tell Gopi-ji that he is not second/was never second. DGCA figures show that DN was always third -- behind IA -- but by a less than 1% or so.


Expect IA to get all charged up now.


 


 


 


 


                                                 ***


 


Part of an interview with Nok Air chairman


Link for the full stoy:


 

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/09/15/Navigation/177/209012/Nok+Air%E2%80%99s+Patee+brings+advertising+tricks+to+the+airline+industry.html

 


 


 


Going international
Hardly anyone outside Thailand has heard of Nok because it now only operates domestically and 70% of its passengers are Thai. But Nok’s notoriety outside Thailand is about to change. In January, it plans to launch its first international service, to Bangalore in India, in partnership with low-fare carrier Air Deccan.


Services to Chennai and Hyderabad, also in India, are planned for later in 2007.


Patee has been looking at India, China and other international markets since shortly after launching in 2004 and initially planned to begin international services in early 2005.


“Our strategy has changed over time,” he says “It’s better to own our own country rather than move out with the rest of the gang.


“Before going to India we really need to work on a marketing solution. It will be an investment and this investment needs to pay off. We don’t want to rush. India is a totally a different type of market from Thailand in the way it works. We need to understand the Indians. We can’t make a mistake once we land there.”



-- Edited by karatecatman at 16:21, 2006-09-16

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Air Deccan's strategy of concentrating on smaller towns may help it achieve it's goal of being the number one airline in India. It needs to overcome the problem of delays and staff attitude. My best wishes are with Mr. Gopinath. It is to his credit that the air fares have come down in our country and we no longer have to bear the duopoly of 9W and IC.



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Number 1 or 2 or whatever does not make any difference to passengers or to yields, if the product remains mired in the perception that it is unreliable. Domestic aviation is a pure commodity now, especially in India, where branding matters to very few.


WOW is all fine said and done and dreamt about, but fact remains, DN will need to sort out issues which have nothing to do with competition on bureaucracy. Their cabin crew uniform, for one - can you imagine what things would be like if ever there was an emergency?


In addition, this business of selling products on board at prices more than MRP as well as not providing seat-pre-assignment, are inhouse deficiencies.


But most of all, DN need to get honest about refunds and delays.


 


 



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Commenting on the uniform, Gopi's next idea is to use it as advertising space.  

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Part 2 of the report:


Reposting it:


Air Deccan to start campaign on Sep 19 to reach Number one slot


Bangalore, Sep 16 (UNI)


India’s first low cost carrier, Air Deccan will trigger a massive campaign from September 19 to dislodge Jet Airways from the number one slot.


Announcing the campaign named ’WOW’’, Air Deccan Managing Director Capt G R Gopinath and Chief Operating Officer Warwick Brady told newsmen here that from September 19 the airline would also offer a free ticket to its passengers if the flight is delayed beyond three hours, except in cases where delay is caused by fog. For a cancelled flight, Air deccan would put its passengers on the next flight, on another airline, subject to availability.


With a fleet of 37 aircraft, including 12 Airbus A 320s, Air Deccan currently enjoy a market share of 21.2 per cent being the second behind Jet Airways which had a clear ten per cent lead.


Growing at 0.5 per cent rate a month, Air Deccan aimed to capture the slot of being the best carrier with customer satisfaction by January next year


Capt Gopinath said ‘‘its inevitability and reality’’ that we will emerge number one carrier in the country, despite the hurdles posed by competition and bureaucracy.


Mr Brady said by the end of the current fiscal, the airliner would have 45 aircraft and by fiscal 2008 the number would go up to 57. Capt Gopinath said in October three Airbus aircraft and two ATRs would join the fleet.


                                                       ***


PART 2


 


Capt Gopinath remarked ‘‘before we become number one, we will become the best airliner with ontime performance.


The low cost carrier had added 20 new airports in its national map so far this year and by the end of the current fiscal the total flights per day would touch 310 from the present 270, Mr Brady said. The new destinations that would unfurl over the next couple of months include Bellary, Kullu, Pathankot, Jamshedpur and Kutch. By the end of current fiscal year the airliner would have carried seven million passengers from two million passengers last year.


Mr Brady said that Air Deccan had recently signed up with Lufthansa for component support. Simiarly it had also signed up a support package with Airbus for three million dollars and ATR for two million dollars. This would ensure 45 engineers of both the aviation majors to be housed in Air Deccan bases to provide in house training to technical staff. Effort also would be made to have one A320 aircraft and three ATRs as spare aircraft to reduce or minimise cancellations. Mr Brady said.


Both Mr Brady and Capt Gopinath highlighted the bureaucratic bottlenecks and predatory pricing indulged by the competition to kill the low cost airliner. Capt Gopinath said ‘‘we are not going to give up’’. He lamented that the airliner was still to get parking bays in New Delhi, even though a relatively later comer, SpiceJet had been given five bays in New Delhi.


 Stating that cartalisation and monopoly was playing havoc on the economy, Capt Gopinath wanted setting up of multiple airports in the country.



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Passengers rant:


http://vinividivici.rediffblogs.com/2006_25_06_vinividivici_archive.html#1151300744


http://www.abdulqabiz.com/blog/archives/general/air_deccan_suck_1.php


                                     ***


HUMOUR: Email-chain


A journey by Air Deccan



Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your captain PATEL welcoming
both seated and standing passengers, especialy in the toilet, on board of Air Deccan.


We apologize for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad
weather and partly due to the search for a missing tyre.


This is flight 717 to Mumbai. Landing there is not guaranteed, but we
will End up somewhere in India. And, if luck is in our favour, we may
even be landing on your village!


Air Deccan has an excellent safety-record. In fact, our safety standards
are so high, that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us! It is with
pleasure; I announce that, starting this year, over 30% of our
Passengers have reached their destination on time. We help you in people management too.


Hope having waited for your flight to take-off for 9 hours today helped increase your patience levels. 


If our engines are too noisy for you, on passenger request, we can
arrange to turn them off. To make your free fall to earth pleasant and
memorable, we serve Complimentary DHARU and Wada pavw. For our
not-so-religious passengers, we are the only airline who can help you
find out if there really is a God!


We regret to inform you, that today's in-flight movie will not be shown
as we forgot to record it from the television. However, for our movie
buffs, we will be flying right next to Kingfisher Airlines, where their
movie will be visible from the right side of the cabin window.


You can lip sync to our music video. We haven't got the ear phones as well.


There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the
Cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow
down!


In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as
possible. For the best view , if however, we go a little too close, do
let us know. Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies right through the
landmark!


Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position for take-off and
fasten your seat-belt. For those of you who can't find a seat-belt,
kindly Fasten your own belt to the arm of your seat. And, for those of
you who can't find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a
stewardess, if available, who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase.







-- Edited by karatecatman at 17:46, 2006-09-16

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Believe me. AD needs to do a lot more to catch up with 9W.


Wishfull thinking.


Whats are their Spares status.Back up Aircraft.


regds


MEL



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It will take some time for CP's dream of becoming number 1. His campaign of giving away free tickets is a novel idea. But I wonder why this campaign is only for a month.

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Well C,mon guys we cant compare apples with oranges. DN do can compete with 9W in certain things like on time plane dep, and other operational aspects but when it comes to
pax service we all know it those blue skirt chics with artificial hindi accent and a proper english accent are much better than lite yellow shirt chicks selling coffee, tea in the whole galley.

DN can really be the flag bearer of Indian aviation industry in terms of Indian pax handled if they could streamline certain things yes they are stressing on ontime dep which is good. But then they should introduce seat allocation too. Because running like dogs for ur fav seat also is a hassle plus if they could start selling proper meals i am sure they can mint more money > Atleast they will have my vote. Because the last thing i want is to go hungry on a 2 hr flight... Though too common abroad i guess i hav really got spoilt by the sahara,s pampering

But yes it will be great to see them on the top spot and indeed they are working hard for it.

-- Edited by vabby at 09:18, 2006-09-17

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karatecatman wrote:


Wish someone would tell Gopi-ji that he is not second/was never second. DGCA figures show that DN was always third -- behind IA -- but by a less than 1% or so.


Expect IA to get all charged up now.



-- Edited by karatecatman at 16:21, 2006-09-16



Well, NDTV also confirms that DN is # 2 in India behind 9W. Today 9/17/06 @ 8:41 AM

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DN is no.2 in terms of traffic carried on the common routes where it operates with the other carriers. However if taken on overall domestic traffic, then IC is still #2.


So this #2 business is a ingenious PR exercise. I have no doubt that they have the potential to be the #1 in terms of traffic. But that is still in the future.


PS: My first post here!!



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WELCOME COUGAR.


WELCOME SLC


 


Don;t expect IA to take this lightly.


The last time DN went around saying it was No. 2, IA made sure that everyone got to know the facts. Press conference was announced with a few hours. IA even released an advt in the papers and mad a posting in their media centre.


Here it is:


Indian continues to be Number Two


Reacting to reports in a section of the media, Indian would like to emphatically and unequivocally state that it continues to be the second largest airline in the country.

Indian’s market share in June 2006 was 22 per cent and has been constant despite the shortage of aircraft due to a maintenance backlog, operation of flights on international sectors and operation of special domestic evacuation flights for Lebanon returnees.

With the planned increase in aircraft availability, leasing of aircraft and induction of the new fleet of 43 aircraft, Indian expects to substantially increase its passenger capacity and market share in the coming months.


Indian Airlines Ltd.
New Delhi


 


25th July 2006



 




-- Edited by karatecatman at 13:56, 2006-09-17

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http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusinessnew.asp?id=33528&template=&cache=9/17/2006%2010:15:08%20AM
Air Deccan to launch Yellow campaign
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Nupur Basu


Sunday, September 17, 2006 (Bangalore):


Air Deccan, India's first low cost airline which has grown to operating 265 flights a day and ferrying 6.6 million passengers, has now come up with an ambitious roadmap. It wants to become the country's best carrier in all respects by March 2007.


In this regard, the airline is launching a "No Rest Till We Are The Best" campaign.


The message will be made loud and clear through a yellow T-shirt campaign by its employees right down from the COO to the Air Deccan staff at airports. The campaign begins from September 19.


"The Yellow campaign is a huge branding campaign and a plan to communicate to all our passengers and customers that we are a reliable airline. We are on time, we offer great fares and you should fly with us," said Warwick Brady, COO, Air Deccan.


Becoming the best


Air Deccan recently celebrated its third anniversary and the COO who shifted from Ryan Air to come onboard Air Deccan completed one year this week in office.


In this period, Air Deccan has become India's second largest scheduled airlines after Jet Airways, beating the national carrier Indian Airlines.


"Seventeen aeroplanes to 37 aeroplanes in one year, to go from 7 per cent market share to 22 per cent market share in one year. We have had huge challenges and given the infrastructure constraints, the regulatory environment and the bureaucratic nature of all of our suppliers, it has been tough," added Brady.


Air Deccan has taken a long hard look at one of its major pitfalls, which has been the issue of punctuality and says it has built a roadmap ahead, which will make Air Deccan the most punctual airline by March 2007 in this country.


To get there, obviously, the company will really have to walk the talk.



 



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I definitely wish DN all the best in their resolve to become #1 in India. It's important for a company to have a stated goal and a firm plan to reach that goal. and always good to aim for the top spot - makes you start to think big. I wish DN would actually start thinking big and do all of the following (and I'm sure there are many more such ideas):


  • Improve their web site and it's scalability
  • Stop all these sham Rs 1, Rs 3 type tickets and establish a minimum price for a sector
  • Roll back the fuel surcharges as quickly as they were levied!
  • Improve their Buy-on-board product and inventory control. It's quite ridiculous to not have anything to buy even if you're hungry and willing to pay
  • Get bigger check-in desks at Indian airports - and innovate on technology - like web or e-checkin
  • Start offering assigned seating - I can't believe this will cost them anything significant.
  • Start offering feeder services connecting to mainline services - create banks of flights at major airports like BLR, BOM, DEL etc. Offer a through check-in and baggage transfer etc. This would of course mandate that they reach their goal of being on-time on all flights.
  • Get more active on lobbying for facilities and benefits - they have enough momentum behind them now - and can claim to be the voice of the "people" (unlike say 9W - which is still quite elitist)
  • Put into a place a documented plan/schedules for their intl forays - even 1.5 years in the future. For instance FI announced their DEL-HEL schedules almost a year in advance, and it would have helped their planning significantly.


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http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1053566


Air Deccan goes for an image overhaul



Praveena Sharma
Sunday, September 17, 2006  22:05 IST


 


With better services, new colours and an attitudinal shift, the pioneer plans to unseat Jet.


BANGALORE: When the problem is understood, can the solution be far behind?


After a three-year flight replete with all manner of snafus, to be charitable to the pioneer, not all of it was of its own doing — Air Deccan has become the No 2 airline in the country with a 21.2% market share in June.


Now, says managing director GR Gopinath, the flight to the pole position has begun.


And its flight path to it is higher service standards and a complete makeover of image.


It goes way beyond just switching the colour of tee-shirts worn by employees from blue to yellow.


The airline is now looking at improving its on-time performance and passenger service; reduce number of cancellations and customer complaints even as it maintains the lowest fares in the market.


Gopinath says surging ahead of Jet is inevitable with the kind of operation expansion his airline has planned over the next few years.


“Overtaking Jet is inevitable. It is a reality, and we won’t even have to work for it. But before we become the No 1, we want to become the best.”


Being the best, however, may take tremendous effort on the part of Deccan; not just in terms of financial investment but also in terms of attitudinal shift.


Nonetheless, the airline has already kicked off the exercise.


Over the last nine months, the airline has brought down its flight cancellations to less than half from 597 in January to 234 in August. It has also improved on-time performance during the same period from 58.61% within 15 minutes and 87.11% in an hour to 76.40% and 98.33% respectively.


Last three months have seen its on-time within 15 minutes range between 76% and 79% and within an hour, it is hovering at around 98%. The no-frills airline has also pruned the percentage of complaints per 1000 passenger from 13.6% (on 3.19 lakh passengers) in January to 6.82% (on 4.21 lakh passengers) in August.


Such performances are giving it the confidence to commit to passengers on service standards. It is kicking off a month-long WOW campaign beginning September 19 under which, if an Air Deccan flight is delayed over three hours flyers would unconditionally be getting a free ticket (except in cases of delay due to fog), and in case of cancellation, he would be put on another flight, subject to availability.


And as it embarks on the campaign, the airline has entered into Rs 460 crore ($10 million) agreement with Lufthansa for component and maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) support and another Rs 230 crore ($5 million) agreement with aerospace companies — Airbus ($3 million) and ATRs ($2million) — for engineering support.


“One of the reasons for high cancellations was inadequate engineering support and ready availability of components. Now with the agreement with Lufthansa, we will have on-site stock of spare-parts at all our bases. Also, 35 Airbus and ATR engineers will train our technicians and engineers. This will improve our operational efficiency considerably,” says Air Deccan CEO Warwick Brady.


The airline’s performance had also suffered because it had no hangar. Now, it is taking care of that too. By December, it will be completing the construction of the hangar at Chennai airport. But more than anything else, analysts say it is the volumes that will give Air Deccan a natural advantage over others.


Over the past one year, the number of passengers flown by the airline has swelled 230% from 2 million in September, 2005, to the current 6.6 million. By the end of this year, it is expecting to touch 7 million, a magical figure the airline had been waiting for long. “Once we reach it, we will have good control over yields,” quips Brady. And once yields are in its control, the game would be as good as won.


 



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To give the devil his due, and Air Deccan will be my last choice on the single count of making us run to get seats, then I will say one thing - the Good Captain has managed to fill his planes without going through any of this frequent flyer programme/loyalty programme stuff.


Some food for thought there.


 



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Air Deccan to fly to Tirupati, Vizag, Mumbai, Jaipur from B’lore
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www.uninews.com


Air Deccan to fly to Tirupati, Vizag, Mumbai, Jaipur from B’lore


Bangalore, Sep 19 (UNI)


Low cost flier Air Deccan today announced the launch of new daily flights to the temple towns of Madurai and Tirupati from Bangalore from October 30.


The flights would be serviced by a 48-seater ATR 42-500 aircraft, Air Deccan said in a release here.


According to the schedule announced, flight DN407 would leave Bangalore at 1055 hrs and reach Tirupati at 1145 hrs. It would reach Vishakapatnam from Tirupati at 1340 hrs. In the return journey, flight DN408 would leave Vishakapatnam at 1355 hrs, reach Tirupati at 1550 hrs and Bangalore at 1640 hrs.


The daily Bangalore-Madurai flight DN105 would leave Bangalore at 1500 hrs and reach its destination at 1630 hrs. In the return journey, flight DN106 would leave Madurai at 1645 hrs and reach here at 1815 hrs.


Air Deccan also announced the launch of new flights to Jaipur via Mumbai to be serviced by an Airbus A320.


The five-day flight DN606 would leave Bangalore at 1015 hrs, reach Mumbai at 1145 hrs and depart for Jaipur at 1220 hrs. It would reach Jaipur at 1355 hrs. In the return journey, flight DN605 would leave Jaipur at 1425 hrs, reach Mumbai at 1600 hrs, depart Mumbai at 1640 hrs and reach Bangalore at 1810 hrs.


The schedules were subject to approval by relevant Government authorities, the release said.


Commenting on the new flights to Madurai and Tirupati, Air Deccan Managing Director G R Gopinath said the airliner already had flights to Madurai from Chennai and two flights to Tirupati from Hyderabad. The new flights to these cities would provide the much-needed connectivity at affordable fares and quick speed to pilgrims.



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Good to see a non stop flight between BLR and IXM at last. I hope the fares are reasonable or else I will stick to the overnight journey on the Tuticorin Express.

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Capt Gopinath looks a very Down to Earth Kind of person.Anyone know if its true.


regds


MEL



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From: Hindu Online

Air Deccan fined for negligence

Guwahati, Sept. 22 (UNI): A consumer court of Asom has not only fined Air Deccan for negligence but also forced it to pay Rs 64,309 as compensation.

A passenger filed a petition against the flight authorities after he missed the flight because of inadequate information.

The consumer court after hearing the petition issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against the Company Chief Executive and ordered payment of compensation along with the fine.

According to the petition filed before Sonitpur District Consumer Redressal forum, scientist Dr Deepak Nath, was supposed to fly to Delhi on April 21, 2005 at 15:00 hours.

However, he was surpised to find that the flight had already left at 13:25 hours.

When the scientist wanted to know why he and a few other passengers were not informed about the change in timings, the authorities neither gave a satisfactory answer nor did they bother to re-imburse the ticket amount.

An enraged Dr Nath then filed a case against the flight authorities.

Air Deccan, instead of compensating the total amount as decreed by the court, sent a draft of Rs 32,155 to Dr Nath, prompting him to once again approach the court.

The court then issued non-bailable arrest warrant against the Air Deccan Chief Executive for willfully defying its order.

Soon after, Air Deccan headquarters settled the remaining amount.


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