Capt. GR Gopinath: Airline entrepreneur who sought to democratize Indian skies
₹5 crore from savings, friends, and family. Its philosophy was announced through the one-rupee ticket (a base fare of ₹1, with taxes bringing the total to around ₹222). It was both a marketing stunt and a statement that air travel belonged to everyone.By 2006, Air Deccan operated from seven base airports, with a fleet of 43 aircraft making 350 flights daily, and connected more than 60 destinations at roughly half the price of rivals.
It had captured a 22% share of Indian aviation in three years. No established airline saw it coming because, as Gopinath observed, incumbents rarely perceive new possibilities.But Gopinath was a builder, not a consolidator. Air Deccan was chronically loss-making even as it grew explosively.
When Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher came knocking in 2007, the private equity investors who had backed the airline acquiesced, and the airline was sold to the UB Group.Years later, Gopinath said Mallya “cheated me of my dream”, and added that while he doesn’t believe in rebirth, “if there was one, I would not have sold the airline to Vijay Mallya”. It is a rare entrepreneur who admits this cleanly, without self-pity or qualification. Gopinath has that quality: a military directness that his business career never trained out of him.What followed is well documented.
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