That was before shooting oil prices, excess capacity and aggressive pricing by competitors made Air Deccan add on 1.5 crore rupees daily in losses. A cash-strapped Gopinath sold Air Deccan to his Bangalore-based rival Kingfisher, describing the moment as emotional as “giving away your daughter in marriage knowing she’ll never again live with you but hoping she’ll be happy”.

A lot has since changed.  These days the price of the cheapest air ticket is over 3,000 rupees; airlines have got together to charge a minimum fare in the garb of a 2,800 rupee fuel surcharge. So, ironically, entry level fares to many cities are the same in budget as well as full-service airlines. And a passenger may be paying the same fare to fly Bangalore-Chennai as Bangalore-Delhi.  The Indian flyer is uneasy that the new Kingfisher-Jet alliance covers more than seat-sharing or ground handling as the two account for close to 60 per cent of market share and could control the market place.

At the low-cost airlines’ peak, only three percent of India’s billion-plus population was flying, whether in budget or full-service airlines. The other 97 per cent is yet to step inside an aircraft and would be more likely to fly if genuine budget airlines were still in business.

Gopinath and his friends still hold 15 per cent of the stake in the airline he founded. But despite the swirling rumours of a buyback of Air Deccan, he has obviously moved on.  A spate of start-up ventures are coming: a nationwide end-to-end logistics company with its hub in Nagpur that hopes to be the FedEx equivalent in an under-served country, a budget resort company and a helicopter charter company among others.

... contd.