hen someone expresses the desire to be the �Udupi-hotel� equivalent of the airline industry, it can only mean one of two things: that the person has an uncanny sense of humour, or that he is dead serious. When that person is Captain GR Gopinath, promoter and managing director of Air Deccan, one can safely discount the possibility of anything having been said in jest.

Because, since mid-2003, Gopinath�s low-cost private airline brand has slowly evolved as the domestic airline industry�s answer to the innumerable, no-frills, value-for-money Udupi hotels that dot large portions of the Deccan plateau. In the process, not only has Air Deccan - a unit of Deccan Aviation, India�s largest private helicopter charter service - emerged as a low-cost air travel alternative to those Indians who could ill-afford travelling by air, the brand has also taken private airlines to hitherto unconnected provincial towns of the country. No second thoughts about it. Gopinath deserves the credit for introducing the masses to the luxury of air travel� minus the trappings of luxury, of course. ... more