DN should stop this strategy of offering Rs. 1.00 or Rs. 3.00 tickets. Instead it should offer tickets in different buckets depending on demand.

www.uninews.com

KTDC, Deccan Aviation ink MoU for helicopter service

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 4 (UNI)

The Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Deccan Aviation to launch helicopter service, to give the tourists double benefit of cutting down travel time, while enjoying a bird’s eye-view of the unique beauty of the state.

The MoU was signed between KTDC Managing Director K G Mohanlal and Deccan Aviation Executive Director Col Jayanth Poovaiah here. State Minister for Tourism Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, KTDC Chairman Cherian Philip were also present on the occasion.

A relase said here this service also offered advantages for corporate travellers, who wanted to mix leisure with business. A helicopter had been stationed at the Thiruvananthapuram airport, and it could accommodate up to five passengers.

The KTDC had already launched a package connecting Kovalam-Kumarakom-Thekkady-Munnar-Kochi-Thiruvananthapuram and was charged Rupee five lakh, which included helicopter charges, local transport and food and accommodation for five people.

The ’Bird’s Eye view’, another package for five people, covering beach, backwater and hill station would charge Rs 35,000, the release added.

www.uninews.com

Air Deccan in talks with GMR, state govs for low cost airports
 New Delhi, Oct 13 (UNI)

Leading no-frills carrier Air Deccan today said it was in talks with infrastructure developer GMR Group, the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka governments for constructing low cost airports.
 ‘‘We are in preliminary discussion with GMR Group asking them to build low cost airports,’’ Air Deccan Managing Director Capt G R Gopinath told reporters in a video conference from Bangalore.
 He, however, clarified that the airline would not be participating financially in the develpoment of such low cost airports.
 ‘‘We will assure direct daily connections to these places,’’ he said.
 Gopinath also said he had approached Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka Governments to build airports for low cost carriers in these states.
 ‘‘Our officials have met the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and expressed our views on the need for low cost airports and submittted a master plan,’’ he said.
 The Andhra government has in principle agreed to develop three such airports in the state.
 ‘‘Our request to them was to treat it (the airport) as state subject. Within six to 12 months they should be able to put these airports,’’ he added.
 A similar proposal was also mooted to the Karnataka government, he said, adding that the airline executives would meet the state government officials in this regard next week.
 Gopinath said he also met with Left party leader Nilotpal Basu for the revival of Cooch Behar airport, although he has not met the West Bengal Chief Minister.

http://www.chennaionline.com/colnews/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7B4B69E18E-256B-430F-89AF-7FA3E1A8CC87%7D&CATEGORYNAME=CHN
Dharna by Air Deccan passengers 

Coimbatore, Oct 25:

Protesting the "abnormal delay" in an Air Deccan flight's departure from Chennai, over 40 passengers today refused to alight at the airport here and resorted to a dharna.

According to the passengers, the flight, scheduled to take off from Chennai at 6.10 a.m, took off after a delay of three hours and landed here around 10.30 a.m ,instead of the usual time of 7.10 a.m.

Blaming the management for the "delay and poor service," the agitated passengers resorted to a sit-in and refused to alight, police said. Many passengers sat cross legged and were shouting slogans.

After airport officials and Air Deccan management pleaded with them, the passengers got down. To compensate the delay, all the passengers were given a complementary flight ticket, management sources said. (Agencies)
 

Air Dhakkan will be number one

hahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah

JumboJet wrote:

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Air Dhakkan will be number one

hahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah

---

Nice to read the post....

My friend flew DN BOM-Nagpur few days ago and surprisingly his flight was on-time!!!

So may be Air Dhakkan does stand a chance to the number one slot... ( first airline to close down)

-- Edited by the_380 at 01:52, 2006-10-27

The Air-Deccan's website states that they follow a policy of free seating, children and people who are physically challenged are not permitted to sit on the emergency rows. Most of the trip reports on DN state that people rush like mad to occupy the seats of their choice once boarding is announced and the cabin crew rightly do not stay in the cabin during boarding.

Based on the readings, it occured to me that maybe DN compromises this safety regulation. Came across a trip report on Anet with a picture of the emergency row (window) being occupied by a passenger who looks like a kid. I'm not sure of it cuz I cant make out the age of a person by looking at him/her. Just thought should share and generate another opinion.


Photo Courtesy: Anet member Abrelosojos

IMO, with the kind of passenger profile DN carries (mostly first time fliers) it makes it much more difficult and frustrating for crew to make them understand about the complexities of safety onboard. Not to mention their indecorous attitude towards the crew members.

Imagine this:

Crew: Excuse me sir :) , since this is an emergency exit row and according to safety regulations, children and physically challenged people are not permitted to sit here and .........

Pax: Arre bhaiya !! hum to yahin baithenge, hamaare baccho ko tum peechay bithaaoge? humne bhi paise diye hai....blah blah

LOL

aM

Deccan IMO has been blindly trying to ape western LCC's without understanding the specific complexities of operating in India. Another problem with them is that Gopinath is in a tearing hurry: he should be consolidating first and growing slowly. The ATR ops are the only ones that are somewhat profitable: but the ATR's are not even being maintained properly. Their A320 ops are a COMPLETE disaster.

Free seating actually increases the complexities and contributes significantly to degrading the what i call the "customer experience index". If they dont want to assign specific seats thats fine: atelast have organised boarding. Divide pax into lots based on check-in sequence. first lot should be Unaccompanied minors and disabled pax, followed by 2/3 lots of passengers in order of check-in.

But can we really expect this kind of logic from an airline run by mallus?

 

 

http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/resultsboardroom/deccanaviationmohankumar/seatperdaytobeat29000bydecdeccanaviation/market/stocks/article/248194/1
Seat per day to be at 29,000 by Dec: Deccan Aviation
 
 2006-10-30 19:11   Source : Moneycontrol.com 
 Deccan Aviation has announced its first quarter results. The company reported net loss of Rs 42.94 crore in the first quarter. Its turnover was up at Rs 536 crore from Rs 187.8 crore.

Chief Financial Officer of Deccan Aviation, Mohan Kumar discusses the company's numbers, along with plans and targets for the future, which include increasing the number of seats per day to 29,000 by December.

Excerpts from CNBC – TV18’s exclusive interview with Mohan Kumar:

Q: Give us a breakdown of the results. What did you see in load factors, yields and operational losses?

A: We have reported a topline of about Rs 536 crore, but the bottomline saw a loss of Rs 42.94 crore. During the period, our load factor was averaging around 72%.

It is lean season during the months of July and August and again the load factor picked up in the month of September. We have flown 1.28 million passengers in this quarter.

Q: You have recently tied up with Lufthansa for component and MRO that is Rs 460 crore. How much does it cut into your cost structure?

A: This should reduce my cost by at least USD 4-5 million per annum over a period of next six-eight years.

Q: What about the ATF price cut that has come? Why no fuels surcharge cut there?

A: Though ATF price has come down in the month of October by 8%, we are waiting for the ATF prices for the month of November. The crude has almost stayed at the same level in the month of October, so we do not know whether the ATF price is going to move downwards.

Regarding the second part of the question, the increase or surcharge imposition changes in the surcharge cannot be done very frequently and it needs some software changes, etc.

Q: Three flights delivery in October took costs shooting up. Taking all those factors into consideration, give us a Q3 outlook?

A: In the third quarter, our inventory per day has gone up by 5000 fleets. Actually from tomorrow onwards, from the existing level of 20400 seats, we are moving to 25600 seats per day.

And November- December being a good month, along with October, which was also good as far as the load factor and yield was concerned, we should hope for a good performance in this quarter.

Q: What is the current load factor in the peak season and how is the seat factor capacity increasing? Has the industry seat factor shot up by about 40-50% in the last four months?

A: That is only for a few days, I can't say it is average 40-50% throughout the season, but on some of the days like two days before Diwali or one day after Diwali, the load factor will shoot up and the demand for airline seats will be very high.

But the average seat load factor is very important. The average demand is most important for us. You cannot make your business plans on temporary fluctuations and gains.

Q: Speaking about fluctuations, four more airlines may start in the next 12 months. Do you see more pressure on yields then?

A: That obviously depends on how the demand curve is moving against the capacity coming up. It is all about the market finally, how it is developing for airline seats. Only that can decide whether it can take three more airlines or not.

Q: Could you give us some figure on whether new aircrafts would be added load factor, seat capacity taking all those factors into consideration?

A: In October, we received three A320 deliveries and one ATR delivery and in the next two months, we have four more ATR due for delivery. Right from the month of November, it is all going on schedule. Our seats per day by end of December should be around 29000 on both ATR and Airbus sectors.

 

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http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/news.asp?id=274233

 

Deccan Aviation to enter air cargo business

October 30, 2006

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Deccan Aviation Ltd. plans to launch air cargo services through a new subsidiary and a top official said on Monday it would sell a 1.96 percent stake for up to 295 million rupees to Investec Bank (UK) Ltd.

Investec, which had funded Deccan Aviation's aircraft, was offering to buy 1.96 million shares at 150 rupees each, Managing Director G.R. Gopinath told Reuters.

Shares of Deccan Aviation, which runs budget airline Air Deccan, fell 5.6 percent to 101 rupees in the Mumbai market.

"We have a long association with Investec and they wanted a stake," Gopinath said. "The funds will be used for expansion."

He also said the company's cargo operations should start operations in six to nine months. "There is tremendous synergy given our huge network and operating bases."

The cargo subsidiary would have its own fleet but subcontract engineering and maintenance to Air Deccan, he added.

Air Deccan has 40 planes flying to 60 centres. It has 8 operating bases spread across the country, Gopinath said.

The company reported a loss of 429.4 million rupees on revenue of 5.36 billion rupees in the quarter to September 2006.

 

 

 
 

-- Edited by karatecatman at 23:53, 2006-10-30