G.R.Gopinath and Air Deccan’s untold story of a great persona is mandatory to learn. From riding a bullock cart to owning an airline is one of the biggest incredible dreams of captain G.R. Gopinath. In each step of his failure, he had shown that he can do more of that. Till his success, he didn’t give up his sincerity and faith towards it. He was born in a small village called Gorur in Karnataka and brought and raised in a middle-class family. His father is a school teacher didn’t allow Gopinath to attend the classes, rather he did his homeschooling. In 1962, he went to the Indian military academy and the national defense academy. Continued for 8 years in the Indian army. At the age of 28, he entered into the entrepreneur roles but before that he has been a daily farmer, sericulture consultant, poultry farmer, hotel owner, Enfield bike dealer, stockbroker, and finally the aviation entrepreneur, Air Deccan. In 1996, Gopinath has started aviation which was divided into three segments. His first venture was a chartered helicopter, under the name of “DECCAN AVIATION”. The aim is to get in of the VIPs and the service for the politicians to travel. He tasted the essence of trials, tribulation, and triumph for the first time in his entrepreneur life.
From retired army officer to the business person itself an unbelievable dream of Gopinath. In his second venture, the failures and struggles have arrived and made his life upside down. In 2003, Air Deccan has launched which thrives to grow the Indian economy till now. To sculpture this, Gopinath gathered around five crores from his friends, family and more importantly he invested his full-time savings. In 2006, he planned to execute airline tickets to be of 50% of other airlines and succeeded it. In the Indian aviation industry, the airline claimed of 22% stake with 43 aircraft making 350 flights every day to reach more than 60 destinations. He earned revenue through advertisements where G.R.Gopinath and Air Deccan’s untold story has become the great dynamic pricing of a first budget airline. They invented 24 hours call center to book the ticket online for all the fliers. In 2007, there was stiff competition for airlines with heavy loss, where Gobinath has forced to sell his airlines to Vijay Mallya, a liquor baron. They plan to merge it with kingfisher’s airlines and rebrand it as kingfisher red. Though Gobinath has faced more failures, he never thought of giving up, that was the only thing that made him conquer his airways.
“Simply fly – A Deccan Odyssey is the name of the book penned by G.R.Gopinath and Air Deccan’s untold story introduced 1 rupee ticket of air Deccan plane to make the travel easy for every common man from lower class people to middle-class people. Our former president late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam drew a statement on the book simply fly which said that “it must become the textbook in management institutions”. Family and friends of Gopinath believed in him from then till now to start a small number of early birds could fly or travel at a rupee. The third revenue was the air cargo service under the name of Deccan 360, but unfortunately, this had also shut down in 2013. The perseverance has made him today what he is. After each failure and drawback Gopinath has never given up, instead, he tried hard to make out better. His main obstacle during that time was an increment of fuel price four times higher, which has made 1 rupee budget plane to tackle over the struggle. Then he brought the plan of, early ticket booking will get a low price, which has led to 12,500 to 13,000, not exceedingly more than that. Another obstacle was the quilt of Air Deccan’s pilot and engineer and went to kingfisher airlines, due to this Ahmedabad to Bengaluru flight has canceled and sometimes delayed.
In Gopinath’s biography, late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam called him as a “pacesetter for the entire aviation business in India”. The 1-rupee budget airline doesn’t break the price barrier alone, but also the caste and class barriers to fly. They have 500 idle airports and airstrips to expand regional connectivity. G.R.Gobinath and Air Deccan’s untold story has got failure in each consecutive attempt but also then his perseverance attitude is what made him today as an incredible Indian entrepreneur. He believed that no money is needed to succeed in this country but our sincerity and faith in what we do matters. The one-rupee ticket has destroyed all the common person barriers to flying. It has brought flying into a reality for every middle-class people. “You cannot miss the flight” is a book penned by G.R. Gopinath in 2017, where his thoughts were provoking and revolved around only his dream of airlines which has made him portray it in his book. G.R. Gopinath is such a great example for making even the impossible things possible with his sincerity and faith.