The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Low-cost carrier Deccan airlines opens its first hangar in Chennai

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Thursday, Jan 17, 2008
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Low-cost carrier Deccan airlines opens its first hangar in Chennai

Special Correspondent

It is expected to give the airline a massive financial boost

CHENNAI: Low cost carrier Deccan airlines opened its first fully-owned hangar for the maintenance and repair of its fleet in Chennai airport on Wednesday.

The 11.5 crore hangar stretches over 70,000 square feet, and is large enough to hold one Airbus aircraft or two ATR propeller aeroplanes.

The setting up of its first fully-owned hangar was a natural progression for the rapidly growing airline, Executive Chairman Capt. G.R. Gopinath said. “We were in a situation where we had become bigger than our competitor [Indian Airlines], but we were still depending on their facilities for the maintenance of our aircraft,” he said.

Deccan currently enjoys a 29.3 per cent market share along with Kingfisher Airlines — only the Jet Airways-Sahara combine is larger. Deccan also flies to more destinations than any other carrier in India.

The hangar is expected to give the airline a massive financial boost — Deccan currently rents out Indian Airlines-owned hangars to maintain and repair its aircraft, at a cost estimated to be around Rs. 4 lakh a day.

The Chennai hangar, which is 46 metres wide, 54 metres deep and 17 metres high, has a 35,000 square foot office space and training facility, in addition to the engineering space. It will be used to provide basic and medium level maintenance checks and protective storage for Deccan and Kingfisher Airlines aircraft, as well as function as a repair shop and assembly area. It is expected to significantly reduce aircraft downtime for both airlines.

Capt. Gopinath said that the congestion problems in Mumbai and New Delhi and the “extraordinary” technical manpower in Chennai convinced the airline to choose Chennai over the other two hubs. “Chennai is going to become a large metropolis, with its IT sector, manufacturing industries, port facilities and extraordinary technical manpower, so I told Mr. Ramalingam [Chairman of the Airports Authority of India] I would rather build a hangar here than in Mumbai or New Delhi.”

He also said that it was “crucial” for other airlines to start investing more in infrastructure, particularly in tier-2 towns and cities. “We need to create infrastructure outside the Mumbai-New Delhi-Chennai economy,” he said. “We have to tap the potential of the other India, the Salems and Tuticorins.”

Deccan will soon establish another Maintenance-Repair-Overhaul unit in Bangalore, which will also be able to accommodate wide-bodied aircraft which the airline will use on international routes — it is eligible to begin international operations from August.

Capt. Gopinath said airlines and the AAI needed to “put their heads together” to improve infrastructure in India to make it an aviation hub for outsourcing. “There are too many problems in getting land in airports and too much bureaucracy in customs, so it is easier for an airline to go to Dubai or Singapore where there are easier fiscal and physical formalities. We need to change our mindset,” he said.

K. Ramalingam, Chairman, Airports Authority of India, said the hangar “would pave the way” for other airlines to invest in creating maintenance hubs.

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