Almost three years after Capt Gopinath was forced to sell his debt-hit Air Deccan to fellow Bangalorean and rival Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines, the skies have again turned turbulent for him.
For the past few days, Gopinath’s cargo airline Deccan 360 has been grounded. The company that leased aircraft to the cargo airline has taken back the planes citing non-payment of dues.
Deccan 360, also known as Deccan Cargo & Express Logistics, was launched only last year, with Gopinath putting in Rs 2.5 crore from his personal wealth for the venture. It operated the service with eight leased aircraft – three Airbus 310s and five ATRs.
The Airbus 310s were used for the metro and major cities, while the smaller ATRs shuttled between smaller towns, between them transporting express and normal cargo to nearly 50 centres. Supporting the service were around 1,000 vehicles, and the company had on the rolls 300 people and an additional staff of 1,500.
The entire operation had to be grounded around a week ago, when UK-based Veling took back the three Airbus 310s. The aircraft were specially converted into cargo-carrying vehicles. In the aviation industry, losing aircraft to non-payment of dues is the biggest knock back on the business, and this development is likely to seriously dent the cargo airline’s market equity.
Gopinath told Mirror that the aircraft were no longer with his company, but the reasons were different. “The aircraft have not been taken away, we gave them back. We had taken the aircraft on lease for three years, (but) they were huge and we needed smaller planes. So, we returned them, and purchased the ATRs.”
When pointed out that the ATRs were not a new purchase, and how was it possible for his year-old company to call off a three-year lease, Gopinath was evasive, and disconnected the phone. He didn’t answer subsequent phone calls and SMSes.
17/06/11 Saumit Singh/Bangalore Mirror
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