Air Deccan in pact with Coffee Day

Air Deccan, India's first no-frills airline and Cafe Coffee Day, part of the Rs 300 crore Amalgamated Coffee Bean Company Limited group on Wednesday entered into a co-branding arrangement through which they will promote each other's brands.

Under this tie-up Cafe Coffee Day will be the single point vendor to supply a range of food and beverages to the passengers on Air Deccan flights.

Air Deccan passengers will receive discounts on purchase of merchandise like coffee powder and gift packs at all Cafe Coffee Day outlets in airports against their boarding pass.

Announcing the tie-up, Air Deccan managing director G R Gopinath said, "It will be a Udupi hotel in the sky. We will provide our passengers with a high quality food and beverages at a low cost." The beverages and snacks are attractively priced from Rs 10 to Rs 50.

The promotion will commence in Bangalore on Thursday and Chennai from December 30 and subsequently in 46 cities. To begin with, four flights will be provided with the new service.

Naresh Malhotra, director, Cafe Coffee Day said the company is aiming at an initial revenue of Rs 2 crore per annum through the tie-up. The arrangement will be exclusively with Air Deccan. The company, which presently has outlets in 60 cities, will widen its presence to 80 cities by March 2006.

Gopinath said, Air Deccan will begin flights to new destinations like Rajahmundry, Thiruvananthapuram, Rajkot, Kandla, Aurangabad, Kozhikode and Tuticorin shortly. Air Deccan through its joint venture in Sri Lanka - Deccan Lanka - will launch an international low-cost airline over the next six months.

To begin with, the airline will put into service three Airbus flights between Colombo-Thiruvananthapuram and Colombo-Trichi, he said adding that the joint venture company has already received licence from the Lankan government.