Go First Gone: 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 percent of the fleet for several months before it was compelled to totally suspend operations from the first week of May 2023.