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Tag: Air Deccan

  • R K Laxman’s ‘Common Man’ to endorse Air Deccan

    BANGALORE: Air Deccan, the low-cost and no-frills airlines seems to have found a common ground with RK Laxman’s famous cartoon character `Common Man’. Both are symbolic of the teeming Indian mass’ aspirations.
    Hence, it seems fitting that the `Common Man, who has been made famous on the pages of Times of India, has been chosen to be the brand ambassador for an airlines, which aspires to make flying affordable for every Indian, irrespective of his social and economical status.

     
     
    An advertising and marketing campaign is in the offing. The campaign will be handled by Orchard Advertising.

    Laxman, the multi-faceted creator of the ‘Common Man’, who is known to be a man of few words, while speaking of the hand shake with Air Deccan, said, “My ‘Common Man’ is the voice of every Indian and I feel every Indian must fly regardless of his economic situation. I feel Captain Gopi’s vision for his airline, of empowerment of every Indian, perfectly fits with the persona of the ‘Common Man’.”

    According to Air Deccan MD Capt. Gopinath, “The ‘Common Man’ and Air Deccan share a commonality …they are both ‘for the people, by the people’. Mr. Laxman has indeed honoured us by allowing us to use the ‘Common Man’ as our ambassador for the airline.”

    Gopinath added: “What will drive us is very simple. It is not what the common man can do for us, but, rather, what Air Deccan can do for the common man.”

    This brand deal comes after Air Deccan has flown over a million passengers with a fleet of 17 aircrafts and 111 flights a day since inception. While the airlines operationally works towards 60 more aircrafts being inducted into the fleet, the `Common Man’, embodying “simplicity (and) no frills approach,” is expected to connect with the people.

     
     
    The `Common Man’ has been a silent observer to the social, political and economic change in India for decades and his silence has been more eloquent than reams of paper and deluge of words used for commenting on the state of the nation.
    On the occasion of this tie-up, Laxman also suggested to Gopinath that he should introduce fares beginning with Re 1, a proposal that would be definitely explored, according to the airlines.

     
     
    So, at a time when the yet-to-be launched low-cost Kingfisher Air looks at jazzing up the domestic air travel sector with customized in-flight entertainment, Air Deccan takes a more earthy approach to connect with the Indian masses whom it dreams to fly across the length and breadth of the country.

  • ADC World Advertising awarded Air Deccan’s aircraft fleet graphics for branding contract

    BANGALORE: Air Deccan’s (AD) Captain Gopinath says that his dream is to have people fly for free, and hopes that one day ancillary income would make this possible-this is catering revenue, advertising revenue, other types of income that airlines can generate besides seat charges.

    That the aircraft body can be a medium like a billboard was first demonstrated by Goinath’s. airline in India and was one of the initiatives taken by AD in that direction. Today, AD announced in Bangalore that it has awarded the fleet graphics for aircraft branding contract to ADC World Advertising for a period of five years. This means big money potential to the Airline and how.

    “We will be flying around 8 million passengers this year – this means 16 million eyeballs.” said Gopinath.

    While refusing to disclose the size of the revenues that aircraft branding generates, AD principal sales & marketing officer, Samyukth Sridharan explained “We currently have 19 A380’s and 20 ATR’s. Branding an aircraft is not as simple as it seems. We have to take into account the cost of paints, the additional weight of the paint added and the additional fuel required for that, well taking all these into account, if I were asked to offer a single aircraft – I’d charge Rs 1 million a month for an A380 and half that amount for an ATR, do the math yourself, and this is just the outside of the aircraft.”.

    Gopinath and his team are looking at all avenues for generating ancillary revenues and growing them from the current 9% to between 25-30% of annual revenues over the next three years. They are looking at web-enabled insurance, excess baggage, which currently brings them around Rs.35-36 per passenger on a average, in-flight shopping, and in-flight catering.

    “I think in-flight sales on Air Deccan contribute about 12% to Café Coffee Day’s present revenues,” informed Sidharan.. AD receives around 24,000 calls daily for bookings. At the end of the call, our people offer ICIC credit cards or loans, this too will help generate ancillary income for us,” he added.

  • Air Deccan inks pact with HPCL

    BANGALORE: Air Deccan announced a tie up with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) to sell Air Deccan Air Tickets at HPCL petrol pumps.
    HPCL Retail executive director S P Choudhary said that Air Ticketing was another product that HPCL was introducing as a part of the bouquet of product and services HPCL offer to customers at petrol bunks. The bulk of the customers at petrol refueling stations were the middle class, the very segment that Air Deccan wanted to tap.

     
     
    “We want to ensure that the middle class has access to Internet in the country in our delivery system, our customers must have more options for ticketing sources, we’re expanding our network to connect the interior parts of the country and want to make tickets easily available, we are simplifying the purchase process of Air Deccan tickets,” said Air Deccan MD G R Gopinath.
     
     
    This association will help integrate small cities with large metros in the country and provide a base of around 250 million middle class customers. The cash earned by petrol pumps could also be rolled over due to the sale of tickets. It is a win-win situation for both Air Deccan and HPCL.
     
     
    HPCL staff have been trained by Air Deccan for new ticket distribution, which will initially be channelised through 10 select petrol pumps in Bangalore and could involve a network of the 2000 Club HP petrol pumps across the country within a yeas time. HP expects to upgrade another 1000 petrol pumps to Club HP and these too could be brought in the loop to sell Air Tickets.

  • Air Deccan to sell tickets through mobile vans

    BANGALORE: In a trial run, airliner Air Deccan will sell its air tickets by mobile vans at three places in Bangalore – M G Road, BDA Complex, Koramanagla and outside Woody’s on Commercial street.
     
     
    The ‘van ticketing counter’ fleet is to be strengthened to 20 over the next few months in the city based on the results of this experiment. The company plans to start similar mobile counters across the country as well.
     
     
    Air Deccan has launched this innovative way of selling airline tickets in collaboration with My Moon Air Travel Agency. Maruti vans hired by the travel agency installed with web-enabled services will serve as mobile ticketing counters to sell tickets six days a week (Monday to Saturday) and payments could be made in cash or by cards.
     
     
    The mobile ticketing centers will be connected to a central reservation system to enable provide confirmation of the tickets.

  • Air Deccan and Café Coffee Day in cross-promotion initiative

    BANGALORE: Air Deccan and Café Coffee Day (CCD) are initiating a cross-promotion exercise. CCD will find ad space on Air Deccan’s aircraft (23 in number, flying to 46 destinations in India currently) while Air Deccan will have a visibility in CCD’s outlet’s (currently 252 in 60 cities in the country and one in Vienna, Austria).

    CCD will also supply all the foods and beverages (f & b) on Air Deccan’s flights.

     

     
    Air Deccan needed a reasonably priced and standard quality f & b for which the passenger has to pay extra on flights, the synergies matched and hence the deal explained Air Deccan chief Gopinath. A co-branded menu card was also released to the press.

    Air Deccan passengers will receive discounts on purchase of merchandise like coffee powder and gift packs at all Coffee Café Day outlets against their boarding pass. The initiative starts with four of Air Deccan’s flights emanating out of Bangalore starting tomorrow.

     
     
    This agreement does not restrict CCD from supplying to other Airlines, neither is it time bound. Both companies will work together as long as they are comfortable with each other. CCD has to manage the f & b supply chain to Air Deccan’s six depots in India.

     
     
    Both companies refused to disclose the size of the deal and the profit sharing basis. Speaking to indiantelevision.com, CCD’s Malhotra expressed confidence that monthly revenues from this stream would go up to Rs.20 million once the national ramp up is complete and more routes are added by Air Deccan.

  • Air Deccan to offer ‘Freedom at Midnight’ scheme

    BANGALORE: Air Deccan has announced a Freedom at Midnight – – booking offer to mark the Independence Day occasion. The low-cost airline is releasing about 500 tickets for a period of 15 August to 21 August as part of the package.
     

     
    The tickets are priced at Rs 500/- + Rs 221/- taxes. According to a media release, the fares will be available between 11 pm and 12 am for all Airbus sectors.
     
     
    The airline presently has a ‘happy hours’ scheme running, where tickets are available between 9 pm and 11 pm at discounted fares. ‘Simply smile’ fares are valid on a few select sectors which change everyday depending on availability of seats.

     
     
    The media release also informs that the airline has ordered for 62 new aircrafts of which 32 Airbus A 320’s and 30 ATR- 72- 500’s would be delivered over the next five years.