UDAN Gives Captain Gopinath A Second Chance; Can He Make Air Deccan Great Again?

It's been ten years since the common man first dared to fly, well, literally. Captain Gopinath’s start-up airline Air Deccan ferried thousands of those who had never boarded a plane before he sold it off to Kingfisher’s Vijay Mallya. But the pioneer low-cost carrier is back, and with newer goals this time.

“I have always said connectivity is key to growth and the hinterland of India deep in it’s bowels needs to be air linked to metros for equitable growth,” said Captain Gopinath. “Air Deccan had the largest such network even bigger than Air India 15 years ago. We hope we can do our bit again,” he added, as quoted by Mint.

The government’s new scheme Udan—Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik—has also been positioned itself to achieve the same. Aiming to connect smaller regional towns, under this scheme hour long flights will be available to passengers at Rs 2,500. “I hope we will able to do justice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of connecting India. Udan is a transformative scheme,” said Gopinath. He also told Mint that ‘he will use smaller 18-19 seater planes to connect several remote locations of the country’.

The airline which has been authorised to fly Delhi-Agra, Kolkata-Burnpur, Kolkata-Cooch Behar, Bagdogra-Durgapur, Kolkata-Jamshedpur, Kolkata-Rourkela, Shillong from various cities in the North East, Dehradun-Pantnagar and Delhi-Pantnagar, Mumbai-Kolhapur, Mumbai-Jalgaon, Mumbai-Nashik, Pune-Nashik, Mumbai-Sholapur, plans to use smaller 18-19 seater to achieve improved air connectivity.