Mumbai: Low-cost airline Deccan would now be called Kingfisher Red and would be a separate brand from Vijay Mallya promoted Kingfisher Airlines.

From Friday, Deccan would operate under the flight code IT instead of the current DN, sources told IANS late Thursday.

This would be the second branding exercise for the once called "common man's airline" after its merger with Kingfisher Airlines in December 2007. The legal merger of the two separate brands is expected by the end of this month.

Details of the current branding exercise of the two carriers are expected to be announced by the end of this week. The spokesperson of Kingfisher airlines refused to comment on the issue.

Air Deccan, which was launched in August 2003 by Captain G.R. Gopinath, a silk-farmer turned-aviator, introduced the concept of no-frills carriers to the country.

After the acquisition of Deccan by liquor magnate Vijay Mallya last year, the airline was branded as "Simplifly Deccan" and its logo was changed to Kingfisher's logo of two palms joining together forming a flying a bird or the tail of an airplane.