“That’s too premature—the ink is not even dry yet, and we have not even completed the formalities,” said Gopinath. “Eventually, when you have a 200-ATR fleet... we could eventually have a separate division.”
Gopinath said that while it is possible that Mallya and he could have major disagreements on future plans for the company, that wasn’t likely.
“That could happen in any relationship,” he said. “But you can’t live in a marriage constantly worrying about divorce.”
The more likely dangers, he said, are a departure from Deccan’s business model or a clash of egos. Both Mallya and Gopinath have outsize, if dissimilar, personalities, and they both generate, some say crave, significant media attention.
“If we do not put our ego ahead of the company, and we ensure that the interest of the company is at the at the top, all other things will work out,” Gopinath said.
But the question that Gopinath has tired of—who’s the boss?—is raised often at Deccan’s offices in Bangalore as well, and “there’s no simple answer to that question,” said the senior Deccan official. “There’s a lot of dust in the air and we need to wait for it to settle down.”
But while the dust settles, there is some agreement on what needs to be done right away. Nudging fares upward and focusing on easy synergies is key, said Deccan’s acting CEO Sundaram.
“There are a number of areas where there is a lot of low-hanging fruit that we agree on,” said Sundaram. “Both parties are mature enough that even if we have differences of opinion, we can drill down to the basics and decide which direction to go in.”
Already, the two companies have successfully negotiated for cheaper insurance (Deccan, it appears, was getting a better deal than Kingfisher), and Gopinath foresees significant cost savings in engineering and training, and perhaps a jointly-owned repair facility to service their common fleet.
Sundaram, and all the officials interviewed for this story, underlined that the relationship between Mallya and Gopinath is friendly, and that Deccan is not getting its marching orders from Kingfisher. But the uncertainty about leadership is making staffers nervous, capping off months of constant speculation as Deccan teetered on the verge of running out of its start-up equity after almost non-stop losses, which topped Rs213 crore in the last quarter.
For now, according to those officials, the real action will move to behind closed doors and into the boardroom.
“Watch this space closely and see what the board looks like,” says Sundaram, when asked about which way the balance of power is swinging. “The intent is to have the independents be really strong.”