Within just eight months of launching chartered flights in Gujarat, Deccan Shuttles has suspended its operations here. Promoted by Capt GR Gopinath, Daily Charters Ltd’s specialised wing, Deccan Shuttles had commenced daily chartered flights between Bhavnagar and Surat in the third week of August 2012. A month back, the company decided to fold up its wings in the region.

The ‘hub and spoke’ model of the Gujarat government failed to lift the business enough to make it viable for the aviation company. An official from Airport Authority of India (AAI) informed that the services were discontinued a month back. A senior state government official also confirmed the development and said that the high price of air tickets for the flights made the model unviable.

Deccan Shuttles commenced 9-seater flights between Bhavnagar and Surat in August last year and, a few months later it had also started another flight between Ahmedabad and Kandla. Tariff turned out to be the downer for both as per a DNA report. 

“Paying Rs4,000 or more, it still took almost four to five hours to reach Kandla, including two to three hours spent at both the airports. Against that, traveling by road takes around six hours, and costs less than half the price of the air ticket. Hence, flying to Kandla was simply not viable,” the official said.

Even for the Bhavnagar-Surat flight, with air tickets priced at more than Rs4,000, occupancy was much lower than expected. “It is not possible to continue the 9-seater flight within Gujarat as the tariff cannot be any lower,” he said.

An official from the company confirmed the suspension to DNA. “We did not get the kind of traffic we expected, so the flights had to be suspended,” he said.

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