New Delhi/Mumbai: In an interview this February in his office in Bangalore, G.R. Gopinath, the man who brought low-cost airlines to India, was feeling introspective.
The question—asked at a time when his Air Deccan appeared to teeter on the edge of profitability and oblivion, before Vijay Mallya gave it a shot in the arm, and before it racked up even more spectacular losses—was simple: What if, after having revolutionized air travel here in India, Air Deccan and Gopinath faltered in the next few months and never made it to the finish line, clearing the way for nimbler rivals to head towards profits and sustainability?
The normally garrulous Gopinath took a few seconds to compose a reply.
“It’s impossible,” he said. “We are the ones who started this transformation in air travel, and whether or not I am there, Deccan will win this marathon.”
Now, eight months after that conversation, Gopinath’s words seem almost prophetic. Interviews with nearly 20 people closely involved with Deccan Aviation Ltd, the company that operates Deccan—including high-level staff, board members, the chief executive and the bankers who help the company run its complicated finances—show that in the last two months, Gopinath’s influence over the airline he created has waned considerably. The officiating chief executive, Ramki Sundaram, reports to Gopinath regularly in his position as chairman of the board of directors, but he has also put in place policies and strategies that are often the exact opposite of those Gopinath followed in the previous five years from his perch as chief executive, chairman and co-promoter of India’s largest low-cost carrier.
“Sometimes I wonder if Captain would even recognize the airline today,” said a senior official at Deccan, who asked not to be named because he didn’t want to be seen as criticizing his mentor’s five years at the helm. Gopinath, who was in the army, is often called Captain, in deference to his rank.
"It feels like we are reinventing the wheel sometimes,” this official said.
“But to be honest, the real question is whether it may be too late.”
At the same time, Gopinath, while still the public face of Deccan (as the airline was renamed some weeks ago in a rebranding exercise), has spent more and more time focusing on alternative projects, spending weeks outside the office. Sometime this week, Accenture Ltd, the consulting firm appointed by Deccan’s majority shareholder, the UB Group, will make its recommendations to synergize Deccanwith UB Group’s airline, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. A recommendation to merge the airlines has been expected by investors in the Deccan stock, who have pushed Deccan’s usually sluggish share up by 123% since May, but it is not clear what role—if any—Gopinath would have in the newly-merged airline, which would be India’s largest by both fleet size and the number of passengers carried.