India, Inc. lifts Air Deccan to the skies

Bangalore: Low-cost carrier Air Deccan is betting on assured occupancy agreements with India Inc for developing its feeder route network. Following a pilot deal with Welspun India on the Mumbai-Kandla sector - where the BK Goenka-led company is partly underwriting the daily service - Air Deccan is close to inking a similar deal with the Tatas on the yet-to-be-launched Kolkata-Jamshedpur flight.
The no-frills carrier is also in talks with JSW Steel for underwriting 10 seats on the recently-launched Bangalore-Bellary route.
Welspun India has signed an arrangement with Air Deccan for 13 seats per day on the Mumbai-Kandla route. Welspun deposits cash with the airline that issues tickets for the company at a specific price on a monthly basis. If the company doesn’t use the paid capacity, the airline releases the seat in the market 24 or 48 hours before the flight takes off. However, it still keeps a few contingency seats for Welspun.
06/01/07 Urvashi Jha & Boby Kurian/Economic Times

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