Explainer | Why do airlines keep collapsing in India’s soaring aviation market?

Tycoon Nusli Wadia-run Go Airlines is the third high-profile carrier that has ceased to fly in the past 11 years as the fight for survival intensifies

The reasons Indian airlines fold mostly boil down to a mix of dirt-cheap fares, high taxes on fuel and a falling rupee that has raised the cost of leasing planes from abroad

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Go Airlines, once India’s third-biggest carrier, has sought bankruptcy protection. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:00pm, 6 May 2023

Go Airlines India Ltd. this week became the latest victim in the battle of the skies over India. It isn’t the first high-profile carrier to fail and it won’t be the last.

Buoyed by an emerging middle class hankering to fly, Indian airlines ordered billions of dollars worth of planes in the past few years, creating a cauldron of competition in what is now the world’s most populous nation. Even before the industry was slammed by the pandemic, the fight for survival was intense.

The lure of aviation has proven particularly attractive – and brutal – for wealthy entrepreneurs, eager to enter a burgeoning sector and wooed by the status of owning an airline. Go, run by cookie-to-clothing magnate Nusli Wadia’s group, is the third high-profile carrier majority owned by a billionaire that has ceased to fly in the past 11 years.

Here’s what makes India both one of the fastest-growing and most difficult markets for operators, as well as suppliers such as Airbus SE and Boeing Co.

Why did Go stop?

Once the nation’s third-biggest carrier, Go sought insolvency protection, saying that Pratt & Whitney had failed to supply parts and replacement engines needed for the Airbus A320neo jets that are the backbone of its fleet, even after it was mandated by an arbitration court to do so, forcing it to ground about half its planes. The engine-maker, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp., has disputed the claim.