Air Deccan, India’s first low-fare carrier promoted by silk farmer-turned-aviator G. Gopinath, will be now rebranded as “Simplifly Deccan”.
Simplifly is the tagline of the Air Deccan brand and the name of the airline’s in-flight magazine.
The rebranding exercise was started after UB Group, which runs premium airline Kingfisher Airlines and is owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, acquired a 26% stake in Deccan Aviation Ltd that operates Air Deccan.
This Bangalore-based no-frills carrier will also ditch the logo of two palms joining together to reflect a flying bird or the tail of an airplane and will use the Kingfisher bird logo, which is also the UB Group logo.
Deccan’s aircraft would also be painted red and white, similar to Kingfisher Airlines’ colours, instead of the current blue and white. The uniform of Deccan’s cabin crew will also be changed to red and white from the current blue and yellow. This, too, will sport a logo of Kingfisher.
Another person, who does not want to be quoted, said though the brand would be named as Simplifly Deccan, there will not be any change in the company’s name or website.
12/09/07 P.R. Sanjai/Livemint
Thursday, September 13, 2007