'Deccan' brand will cease to exist after merger, says Vijay Mallya

Vijay Mallya, the chairman of United Breweries Group and Kingfisher Airlines through a spokesperson has said on Thursday, “Deccan brand will cease to exist because after the merger there will be only one company and that will be Kingfisher Airlines.”

This sudden statement came yesterday at the party of first grape cracking of this season’s winery at Baramanti (Maharastra) contradicting the statement of Captain Gopinath, the promoter and chairman of ‘Deccan’ Airways, who had said earlier over merging issue: “the two airlines would operate as separate entities even after the merge.

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Clarifying his point of view Mallya said through his spokesperson, “If the DGCA letter was addressed to Deccan, and if Deccan changes name to Kingfisher, understandably the clearance applies to Kingfisher.”

Earlier, UB group had acquired the 26% stake at worth Rs.550-crore in the Deccan Aviation, which promotes the Air Deccan and offered the bid for further 20% stake that would reach to 46%, while 51% of stake is essential to dissolve Deccan into Kingfisher.

At the dealing time, Capt Gopinath has said that after the merger ‘Air Deccan’ would rebranded as ‘Simplify Deccan’ and handed over to its most route to Kingfisher. Air Deccan is famous for its low-cost service across the India.

The Civil Aviation Ministry had called a meeting on March 17 where the result extracted there from the meeting that Air Deccan can get the permission of flying abroad as it is going to fulfill the eligibility for flying overseas. According to Aviation rules, “five years of experience in the domestic flying is essential for getting the permission of flying abroad.”

It was also decided that time, if Kingfisher shakes hand with Air ‘Deccan’, it could also get the approval from the ministry after finishing the formalities.

Karnataka High Court on April 17 has called a meeting of both the airlines over ‘merging’ issue where the fate of the venture would be decided, as per Mallya’s spokesperson informed to media.

According to sources, Mallya is willing to differentiate two products ‘full service’ flights to US and Europe and ‘low-cost’ ones to Gulf and Southeast Asia out of which Kingfisher would definitely adopt the full service product.