Go First 11th private airline to ‘drop’ out of skies in a decade

MUMBAI: The tottering Indian aviation sector hit fresh turbulence when early this month, another flourishing private airline was suddenly grounded owing to various problems, making it the 11th in a decade to fall from the skies.

Throwing their hands up, the Go First budget airline’s owners - the Wadia Group - filed voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) sending shockwaves through the entire airline industry.

Go First was plagued by a peculiar problem - the purported failure of the jet engine manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney, USA, to supply engines/spares for its aircraft that grounded nearly 40 per cent of the fleet for several months before it was compelled to totally suspend operations from the first week of May 2023. While the DGCA slapped a show-cause notice on the carrier for its abrupt actions that created havoc with thousands of flyers, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia seemed sympathetic to Go First grappling with the engine problems.

While assuring that the government was helping out as best as possible, Scindia also called upon Go First to make alternative travel arrangements for its flyers to avoid inconveniencing them. According to Go First the application under the IBC came after the “ever-increasing number of failing engines supplied by PW” which led to the grounding of around 25 of its 61-strong Airbus A-320neo aircraft, or almost 40 percent of its fleet by April 30, 2023.

Though Go First’s promoters have pumped in nearly Rs 6,500 crore, plus support from the government’s emergency credit line guarantee, all this failed to help as it kept incurring 100 percent of its operational costs and with a total loss of Rs 10,800 crores, it ‘succumbed’.