Mallya evades query on Air Deccan stake

Captain CR Gopinath, the owner of Air Deccan, flew down from Toulouse today in the giant Airbus A-380, the aircraft for which Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines has placed an order.

But no, there was nothing to read into this. According to both airline barons, no takeover talks are on.

"If you are asking whether I am interested in acquiring Air Deccan, the answer is no. If the question is, is it desirable to have a stake in Air Deccan, the answer is yes," said Mallya.

Gopinath was even more eloquent. "If Vijay Mallya wants to buy the moon, I will only say, if wishes were horses...Even if Mallya wanted to acquire, Air Deccan is not up for sale. It has been built with a longer vision."

Meanwhile, a list of VIPs, carefully selected by Mallya, which included a mix of "RP3Fs" ("regular page three features") and politicians, sipped vintage champagne 30,000 feet above terra firma in the world's largest aircraft, on its maiden flight to India.

The list included Mallya's close friends, from the dapper Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel to his favourite fashion designer Rohit Bal.

The industry was represented by Hero Honda's Pawan Munjal. Fashion designer Ashish Soni, actress and now social activist Nafisa Ali, former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Minister of Agriculture Sharad Pawar. So was former minister Jagdish Tytler and former Aviation minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.

The civil aviation brigade was represented by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) boss Kanu Gohain, Airport Authority of India (AAI) chief K Ramalingam and Indian Airlines CMD Vishwapati Trivedi.

"The visit of the A-380 to India is a celebration of the continued spirit of innovation. We will be deploying this jet on the India-US route," said Mallya, who is now awaiting permission from the Indian government to fly to the US.

"The experience was mind-blowing. It was a noise proof flight. The business class is in three rows, the lavatory area is double a normal aircraft's and there is a lot of walking space," said Soni.

Nafisa Ali described the experience as "luxury personified" and Munjal thought it was far superior to the cruise on the Concorde, the world's fastest aircraft which does not fly anymore.