Low-cost aviation pioneer Capt G.R. Gopinath, who has launched Deccan 360, India’s first cargo airline, says the India-Dubai trade route is critical to his business strategy.
“We recently launched our flights connecting Delhi and Chennai to Dubai, which will create stronger trade linkages between these three trade centres, and also will aid in integrating India’s hinterlands with industries, markets and consumers in metros and also with the Asian business hubs such as Dubai,” Gopinath told this correspondent in an interview. “We are geared up to corner a sizeable share of freight movement on this route.”
The entrepreneur, a former Indian army captain, who established Air Deccan in 2003 before selling it off four years later to Kingfisher Airlines, says the India-Dubai trade route is one of the busiest in the world and one which sees constant movement of goods and precious commodities (non-oil products) between the two regions.
According to Gopinath, Dubai is India’s largest trade partner and among the biggest hubs of Asian and global trade. “We have deployed an Airbus A310 freighter aircraft to serve these routes,” he says, pointing out that Deccan 360 happens to be the only Indian cargo airliner to deploy a wide-body freighter aircraft.
The cargo carrier has built the required competencies for handling and delivering large, perishable and high-value commodities overnight at highly competitive costs, he points out. “Our wide-bodied aircraft has been customised for the company and has the capacity to carry 35 tonnes of cargo,” says Gopinath. “The aircraft has been split into four bays with different temperatures to handle sensitive cargo such as vaccines.”
Deccan 360 will induct two more similar wide-bodied aircraft and three ATR-72s with capacity of eight tonnes each during the year. “We are going to deploy about 120 tonnes of cargo capacity in the first phase itself, which is equivalent to the size of the entire capacity of all the cargo airlines put together in the country,” he adds.
Gopinath says that besides the export/re-export trade between India and Dubai, there has been a sharp spurt in export of industrial goods, handicrafts and agricultural products including perishables and livestock from India. “This presents a great window of opportunity for cottage industries, small and large business units and for farmers in our country, but it also calls for specialised air freight capacity and delivery capabilities to realise the potential.”
The fact that re-exports from Dubai was almost double of its exports also reflects the significance of Dubai as trans-shipment point for Indian trade, notes the aviator.
Deccan 360 is the first logistics company in India to adopt and develop a hub and spoke model.
The core of its hub and spoke operations will be Nagpur, located on a 100-acre facility and will be supported by smaller hubs in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.