By Consultants Review Team
Nusli Wadia, chairman of the Wadia Group, which owned Go First, stated that Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines began malfunctioning not once, but multiple times, beginning with the first delivery in 2017. He also estimated the cost of the manufacturer's suspected faulty engines to Go First at more than Rs 10,000 crore.
In an interview, Wadia stated that P&W's delay and contractual defaults "irreparably financially damaged Go First," putting several thousand employees as well as a national asset that served millions of passengers at danger.
He claimed that Go First was forced to file a case with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) because it had no other options. "Unfortunately, due to several legal interventions, despite Go First being poised for a revival, its revival could not take place," he told reporters.
"The Pratt & Whitney engines began to fail from the start, not just once, but several times, beginning with the first deliveries in 2017." "Despite P&W's efforts to find solutions to the defects, they were unsuccessful," Wadia added.
The chairman of the Wadia Group stated that P&W had persuaded Go First (formerly Go Air) to use their new engines, which they claimed would be reliable and last up to 15,000 hours before requiring maintenance.
"Unfortunately, the engines failed right from the first deliveries," Wadia told the daily, adding that their CEO had been apologetic for the failure of their engines since 2017. He admitted that Pratt first fixed the engines for free and compensated for grounded flights. Wadia stated that following the COVID-19 epidemic, Pratt began demanding payment for the repair of the failed engines, despite the fact that the contract stated that they were obligated to fix the engines for free and replace them within 48 hours.
According to Nusli Wadia, the IPO was initially well received, but the grounding of a significant percentage of the fleet caused investors to withdraw their interest, finally leading to the IPO's cancellation. "In order to sustain the airline operating at 50% with 100% costs, the promoters invested Rs 3,200 crore," Wadia was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
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Wadia further claimed that P&W's contention that Go First's years-long failure to pay maintenance and lease payments resulted in service suspension was untrue. According to Wadia, Go First completed all of its commitments appropriately but refused to accept P&W's cash demands for repairs to its failed engines.
In May, when Go First approached NCLT, almost 65 per cent of its aircraft had been grounded. Lessors wanted their planes back and wrote to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for deregistration of the planes.