Air Deccan spreads wings to Tuticorin

Air Deccan's Chennai-Madurai flight will now extend to Tuticorin as well. This is part of the low-cost carrier, Air Deccan's efforts to extend 114 daily flights to 35 destinations, in order to increase its national footprint.

This was announced by G R Gopinath, managing director, Air Deccan, at a press conference held in the city on Friday.

Air Deccan, at present, has daily flights from Chennai to Bangalore, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Madurai. The Chennai-Madurai flight extending to Tuticorin is scheduled to be launched in a month's time.

More flights have also been planned between Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad. "We shall have a 'software shuttle' between Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad every day, in the next couple of months," he added.

Gopinath was in Chennai to extend Air Deccan's partnership with HPCL to distribute air tickets through the latter's 22 retail petrol outlets in the city.

With this mechanism, a customer can book an air ticket at an HPCL outlet, instead of accessing the internet or going via travel agents or booking at the airport.

This arrangement was first kicked off in Bangalore in March this year with 10 HPCL retail outlets and subsequently in Delhi in June at 30 HPCL stations.

"Low cost airlines can succeed when it can be delivered to the common man directly as internet and credit card penetration is low in India. Besides Air Deccan does not give credit unlike other airlines and travel agents also prefer to sell full-service flights as this means more commission," he said.