Go First stares at more trouble: DGCA may take away its airport slots, international flying rights

Go First crisis: Beleaguered airline Go First, is staring at more trouble as the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is reportedly looking to take away domestic airport slots and international flying rights of the carrier. 

According to a report in Moneycontrol, a senior government official said that if an airline does not utilise its airport slots in a year, it loses its historic precedence to domestic airport slots. It has been a year since the collapse of Go First, he said. 

Go First’s domestic airport slots have already been allocated to other airlines, and its international flying rights would soon be redistributed, he said. 

Another government official told the news site that the government had temporarily allocated the flying rights of Go First in the Winter Schedule for 2023 and Summer Schedule for 2024, and these allocations are likely to be made permanent by the end of the month. The temporary reallocation of the slots were done to cater to the rising domestic and international traffic demand, the official said. 

Losing its domestic slots, and flying rights to international destinations such as Oman, Dubai, Thailand, Singapore, Abu Dhabi is expected to impact the valuation of the airline further, as per an executive involved in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Go First’s flying rights and domestic slots were protected after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) imposed a moratorium on its assets  after the airline declared bankruptcy in May 2023. In April this year, the Delhi High Court asked the DGCA to process the deregistration applications for the aircraft leased by the airline. Following this, on May 1, the DGC approved the deregistration of Go First’s aircraft. 

Go First had filed for insolvency on May 2, 2023, and ceased its operations the next day. It blamed its financial woes on the ‘faulty’ engines of Pratt & Whitney that led to the grounding of half of its fleet. The airline has liabilities worth Rs 11,463 crore, to all its creditors combined.