Go First Aircraft Grounding Exceeds 2 Months, Extends Flight Cancellation Till Jul 6

Go First Airline, owned by the Wadia family, filed voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings and blamed engine maker Pratt & Whitney for not supplying adequate engines to the airline.

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Cash-strapped Go First has further extended the cancellation of its flights till July 6, 2023. With this, the grounding of planes of the budget airline will exceed 2 months. The airline, which is undergoing insolvency resolution process, stopped flying on May 3 and since then, it has extended cancellation of flights multiple times. Even though the senior representatives of Go First discussed various aspects of the revival plan with officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), its unlikely that a verdict will come from the DGCA anytime soon. 

DGCA will examine documents submitted by Go First related to the revival plan and will also conduct an audit on operational preparedness before allowing the carrier to restart operations, sources close to ANI said. The revival process gathered pace after the formation of the airline's Committee of Creditors (CoC), comprising Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India, IDBI Bank and Deutsche Bank, on June 10.

"... Due to operational reasons, Go First flights scheduled till 6th July 2023 have been cancelled," the budget carrier said in a tweet. The company has filed an application for immediate resolution and revival of operations. "We will be able to resume bookings shortly," the airline said.

Lenders have committed an interim funding of around Rs 450 crore, considering a day's operations are expected to cost around Rs 10 crore, sources had said. The airline, when it restarts operations, will not be operating flights from Jaipur, Lucknow, Kannur, Patna, Varanasi and Ranchi for the time being, a PTI added.

The budget carrier, which was owned by the Wadia family, is in voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings as it stopped flying on May 3 and blamed engine maker Pratt & Whitney for not supplying adequate engines for its grounded aircraft, which was half of the entire fleet of the airline.