Low-cost airline Deccan is planning to fly to destinations in South East Asia and the Middle East after completion of five years of domestic operations in August 2008.


Deccan Aviation Chief Operating Officer Preetham Philip told visiting reporters that the airline would commence flying overseas from August next year.

"We are presently working on this and studying the bilaterals," he said.
When asked which countries would the airline prefer to fly, he said these were in South East Asia and the Middle East.

He said Deccan would get delivery of four A320s before August next year and these would be used for short-haul destinations overseas.

Philip said the airline would approach the Centre before March 2008 to seek approval for overseas operations and is looking at secondary airports in those countries to contain costs.

02/12/07 PTI/Economic Times

Hit by monsoon blues, budget carriers, Air Deccan and SpiceJet, have suffered loss in market share during July 2007 — the latest month for which official traffic data is available. According to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) figures, full-service carriers marginally increased their market share during the month.


Country’s largest low-cost carrier, Air Deccan, saw its market share going down to 16.1% in July this year, down by 2 percentage points as compared to the previous month. SpiceJet’s share stood at 7.7% during the month as against 7.7% in June.
SpiceJet’s seat factor declined to 71.4% during July as compared to 77.9% in June. Seat factor of Air Deccan fell too sharply in July to 67.7% from 84.8% in June. The declining share of the two low-cost players is probably on account of hike in fares which has improved their revenues.

SpiceJet officials, however, could not be contacted for comment. Market share of full service airlines — Indian, Jet Airways and Kingfisher –– increased marginally. The market share of Indian went up to 20.5% in July as compared to 19.8% in June. Jet, the market leader, increased its share to 22.7% as compared to 22% in the previous month. Kingfisher increased its market share to 13% in July as compared to 12.9% in June.

22/09/07 Nirbhay Kumar/Economic Times

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

Low-budget carrier Air Deccan Saturday started flights connecting New Delhi and the popular resort town Shimla.

'To start with, there will be four flights a week and if the business is good we may even consider morning and evening flights daily,' Air Deccan managing director G.R. Gopinath said here.

'For the first six months several Shimla hotels will book 12 seats on every flight and will pay Air Deccan over Rs.7.5 million at the end of the six months so that this route is made viable and popularised,' he said.

'The tariffs will range from Rs.1,000 to Rs.4,000 and average around Rs.2,000,' he said.



Air Deccan will start 48-seater flights to Shimla, which was so far served by 20-seater flights by Jagson airlines.

The Shimla airport runway has recently been increased to enable landing of 50-seater plains.

Air Deccan operates 350 flights daily, 80 percent of them to non-metros, officials of the company said.