CEO: Go. The First owner won’t leave the airline. On Wednesday, Go Airlines (India)’s CEO told Reuters that the budget carrier’s owner had no intentions of leaving after engine issues put it into bankruptcy. Instead, frustrated travelers complained of abrupt flight cancellations.

On Tuesday, India’s third-largest airline, Go First, filed for bankruptcy, citing Pratt & Whitney’s “faulty” engines on its Airbus 320 neo aircraft.

The first Indian airline to fail since Jet Airways in 2019 faces intense competition from IndiGo and Tata Group-owned Air India as passenger traffic recovers from the epidemic.

“The Wadia group, in particular Nusli Wadia, has always tried to see that the company and the airline operations go on, on a normal basis, even though we are completely disabled to that extent by Pratt & Whitney,” CEO Kaushik Khona stated. “Wadia group will not leave.”

Wadia, which owns 100% of Go First, invested 2.90 billion rupees ($35.46 million) in April, increasing its total investment to 65 billion rupees.

“The Indian government is very keen we should not fail,” Khona remarked.

After the bankruptcy filing, Khona stated the airline would not sell tickets until May 15.

“I had to shell out more than double of what I originally paid for a ticket on another flight,” said Mumbai-based advertising professional Timir Roychoudhury, whose Goa-Mumbai trip was canceled.

Go First filed for bankruptcy because the U.S. business refused an arbitration ruling to provide spare leased engines, which would have allowed it to resume full operations. In addition, go First said Pratt & Whitney engines had a “serious design flaw” that caused shutdowns and early failure, grounding 28 of its aircraft this week.

In arbitration, Pratt called Go First’s claims “fabricated obligations.”

The engine producer, Raytheon (RTX.N), also inquired why to Go First ordered additional 156 engines in 2019, three years after it started using them, if they were problematic. Pratt said Go First could not prove it was “sole or exclusive cause – or any cause at all – of its poor financial condition.” The Pratt engine needs extra maintenance in hot, dusty areas like India. In addition, repair capacity shortages exacerbate availability gaps.

After some plane groundings, IndiGo ditched Pratt and ordered $20 billion worth of CFM International LEAP engines for its fleet expansion in 2019.

CEO Khona confirmed it had paid all Pratt payments and that the insolvency procedures were to revive the airline, not sell it.

Go First’s market share in India decreased to 7% in October 2022, and its weekly departures plunged 39% by March from 2021 levels. On Wednesday, the airline’s CEO claimed it was trying to deter lessors and that certain parties had indicated an interest in buying shares. But, according to three unnamed pilots, paychecks have been delayed for months, and they are considering switching to stronger competition.

Two bankers told Reuters that Go First’s lenders would likely meet on Wednesday to discuss the next steps after the bankruptcy filing.

In its bankruptcy filing, the airline owed financial creditors 65.21 billion rupees ($797 million). However, according to the Reuters filing, Go First had not defaulted on any of those loans as of April 30. As a result, go First Lenders Central Bank of India (CBI.NS), Bank of Baroda (BOB.NS), and IDBI Bank (IDBI.NS) declined while rivals rose.