GoAir Flight Slots ‘Temporarily’ Granted To Other Airlines

The Union Aviation Ministry has given the slots and foreign bilaterial rights of GoAir to other airlines operating in India. According to a report by TheTimes of India, the former rights of GoAir have now been granted to different airlines like Air India and IndiGo.

The issue

GoAir has been facing issues with its flights for a while as the demand for the airline’s flying schedule has not been met with the supply and availability of its planes fit to fly internationally. For any airline to fly international routes, it needs a bilateral air services agreement as well as slots for flying. The bilateral services agreement is done by the airline with the country they wish to operate in. Once that is clear, slots are allotted by the Civil Aviation Ministry, DGCA, operators, and airlines collectively. With GoAir not having enough resources to fulfil its role, the rights have now been given to other airlines in order to save travellers from facing any hindrances.

Airlines Speak

According to TOI, officials of different airlines commented on the matter: “All airport slots that GoAir had are gone. Their bilaterals were temporarily distributed mainly among Air India, Vistara, and IndiGo. Akasa asked for Go’s Dubai flying rights (it has so far got the same for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar). Now that there is no bidder left from GoAir, airlines will ask the ministry whether the temporarily distributed slots and bilaterals of Go will be put in a general pool and then given as per airlines’ needs.”

GoAir has not found relief from its troubles as the company is also involved in a legal fight at the Singapore Court of Arbitration where the airline has asked for around ₹8000 crore compensation from P&W for failure of its engines. The company also owes its creditors, like Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank amongst others, more than ₹6200 crore.