The Wadia owned Go FIRST’s voluntary filing of bankruptcy in May 2023, had surprised many with the lessors being the foremost to be caught unaware. Plagued by issues with Pratt & Whitney engines, dispute with P&W over the award of Singapore Arbitration and mounting groundings led to the airline management deciding to get out of the airline business. What ensued was a long drawn battle in the courts over possession of planes which the airline did not own and had stopped paying its lease rentals.
The airline had 54 planes at the time of grounding which comprised five A320ceo and 49 A320neo. Over half of the fleet was grounded as per news reports at the time of grounding. Finally, in April 2024 the Delhi High court directed regulator DGCA to de-register the planes and facilitate transfer. The condition of the aircraft had subsequently deteriorated since the grounding, with some being grounded even when the airline was operational. Things might have moved on the deregistration front but the lack of access to planes meant a lot of work for lessors to get them airworthy and then fly them out of India.
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By October last year, one-fourth of the erstwhile fleet was out of India. In the next three months, the speed at which the planes are returning has gone up with over half the fleet of 54 planes having flown out of India by December 31, 2024. Interestingly, at least two A320ceo have already started flying for other carriers, one with Air Arabia and one with Fly Jinnah already showing up on flight tracking websites.
The first lot started moving out of India in July last year, with the others following soon after. This has meant work for MRO’s in India, with a lot of aircraft being made airworthy by government owned AIESL as well as private MRO players in the country. At the time of grounding, there were nine airports in India which had these planes.
How many flew out?
As of the end of December, 28 out of 54 have flown out. This has seen both planes at Hyderabad and the sole planes at Ahmedabad and Goa – Mopa having flown out. Kannur and Bengaluru have also seen more than half of the planes being flown out. Kannur had five aircraft with three now flown out, while Bengaluru had nine, five of which are now out of India.
Delhi had the highest grounded planes at 23, eleven of which are now out of India. This is a relief for Delhi airport which is making new peaks in traffic but is constrained by available bays due to grounded planes of Go FIRST as well as IndiGo.
While it took seven months for the first 13 planes to fly out, the next three months has seen another 15 aircraft being flown out. 24 A320neo and four A320ceo have flown out of India.
What next?
The global Pratt & Whitney engine issue has meant that all the airframes which have flown out have not immediately found a new home. When the airline stopped flying, there were a bunch of planes which were grounded for lack of engines. The lessors of these aircraft have to work double, with efforts not just to get the aircraft certified airworthy but having engines which can fly the aircraft out and then be grounded till engines are replaced, which then makes the aircraft available for other airlines.
Network Thoughts
The aviation ecosystem is yet to come out of the pandemic shock with every other thing blamed on supply chain constraints. Market leader IndiGo is relying on wet leases as well as induction of older A320ceo planes to continue its upward march on the capacity front. These grounded planes of Go FIRST which are going out can be god sent capacity for some airlines, but for the engine issues. Again, had the engine issues not cropped up, the airline could have survived!
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