Air Deccan won't be rebranded, perception should change: Mallya

At the CII Marketing Summit, Mallya clarified that he intends to retain the Air Deccan brand, which is very powerful, in Tier II cities

Since the time the Vijay Mallya owned Kingfisher Airlines bought a stake in the low-cost airline, Air Deccan, speculation has been rife about whether Air Deccan would undergo a change in brand name as happened after the Jet-Sahara deal, when Sahara Airlines was renamed JetLite.

At the CII Marketing Summit, Mallya clarified that he intended to retain the Air Deccan brand. He said, “Before buying a stake in Air Deccan, we had gone to the market to study the brand. And we found that in Tier II cities, the first name that comes to the mind of consumers when asked about an airline is Air Deccan.” Mallya said the brand had gained immense popularity with its Re 1 ticket campaign and he wouldn’t want to play with its brand image.

Air Deccan won't be rebranded, perception should change: Mallya

Vijay Mallya

According to Mallya, what needs to be done is to bring about a change in the brand perception of Air Deccan. He said the negative attributes of the Air Deccan brand is quality of service and factors such as flight cancellations and delays. Mallya said, “All this negativity with the brand needs to be taken care of.” He clarified that the flight cancellations and delays were all the result of the fact that Air Deccan grew very fast.

Mallya said that Air Deccan had a huge fleet of ATRs, which has been done away with now, and people would be surprised to know that except for four aircraft, the airline’s entire fleet is new.

He continued, “Rebranding is not just painting a new logo in a new colour. You need to change the attributes of the brand. Retain the positive aspects of the brand and do away with the negativities. If that’s rebranding, then it will be done with Air Deccan.”

Capt. GR Gopinath, who was also present at the summit,

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