Captain GR Gopinath, the son of a schoolteacher, had the desire to see every Indian fly at least once in his lifetime.
He started his career with the India army in 1971 but found it too restrictive. He quit in 1979 and started his entrepreneurial stint with the business of silkworm rearing and drip irrigation.
The cacoon-to-cockpit transition came in 1995 when he along with his National Defence Academy (NDA) course friend Captain K.J. Samuel started a heli-charter company Deccan Aviation.
From a heli-charter company Captain Gopinath went on to pioneer the concept of low-cost, no-frills airlines in India in August 2003 - Air Deccan.
In its first full year of operation, Air Deccan flew 1 million passengers and earned revenue of $75 million. In the following year, it raised $40 million in private equity from ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Ltd, India’s largest private equity and venture fund management company.
If today small towns like Hubli, Rajahmundry, Jabalpur and Gwalior blip on the aviation radar, the credit goes to this man, who through his perseverance and indefatigable efforts translated a myth into a reality. |
