Deccan, Tatas in tie-up for charter flight service

Deccan Charters, part of G R Gopinath's logistics venture Deccan 360, has forged a strategic marketing alliance with the Tata group and B-Jets to pool their resources for chartering passengers to remote parts of the country.

Gopinath's aviation services company Deccan Charters Ltd, Taj Air, the airplane charter company of Tata group's Indian Hotels Co Ltd and Business Jets India Pvt Ltd announced the launch an alliance that has been branded as Powerfly.

To begin with, the service will be available within the country, but the alliance is expecting to go international by tying up with charter services in the Middle East, Europe and Singapore, targeting corporate and leisure travellers.

The alliance has aircraft based in around 10 locations in the country.

"This is an attempt to tap the top of the pyramid and an attempt to offer seamless travelling solutions in India and abroad," said Gopinath, who pioneered low-cost flying through his venture Air Deccan, which was later bought by Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. "Powerfly will have a fleet ranging from helicopters to private jets that can be available (for hire) in the range of Rs70,000-Rs3,00,000," he added.

Gopinath said Powefly' would also allow people to own part of the aircraft by selling them flying hours.
 
"This is a non-equity based marketing alliance, but we may pick up equity in future," said R K Krishna Kumar, director, Tata Sons and vice chairman, Indian Hotels Company Ltd. Deccan Charter with 16 aircraft and Taj Air with four aircraft already provide charter services.
 
Though Reliance Industries Ltd had bought a strategic equity stake in Deccan 360, there is no equity contribution from the $67.4 billion salt-to-software Tata group in the alliance.