Air Deccan plans hub at Chennai

India's first low-cost airline Air Deccan is planning setting up its main engineering and maintenance hub in Chennai. The company has applied for land from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and hopes that it will be able to start work on the hangar in the next one month.

"We have chosen Chennai as it has good infrastructure facilities. The airport is also not congested like the airports in Mumbai and Delhi," said Captain G R Gopinath, managing director, Air Deccan.

He was talking to press persons during the launch of the Airbus 320 flight on Chennai-Delhi-Guwahati sector. All day-to-day inspection, line maintenance and ancillary work will be done at the engineering and manufacturing facility in Chennai. Its current engineering base is in Bangalore.

Air Deccan has plans to link up Tuticorin, Salem, Coimbatore and all unconnected parts of Tamil Nadu by December 2004.

"We will start daily direct flights on Chennai-Delhi, Chennai-Mumbai and Chennai-Hyderabad routes shortly," added Gopinath.

The company is planning on divesting 20 -25 per cent stake to fund its expansion plans.

"We are currently in advanced talks with some globally recognised foreign institutions and should make an announcement soon," remarked Gopinath.

Air Deccan which currently operates 70 flights has plans to increase this number to 100 by December 2004.