Three companies want to buy Go First: SpiceJet, Safrik Investments and Sharjah expressed interest

Three companies have shown interest in buying the cash-strapped airline Go First. These include the country's budget airline SpiceJet, Africa's Safrik Investments, and Sharjah-based aviation company Sky One. The Economic Times has given this information in one of its reports.

According to the report, all three companies have demanded to extend the date of bidding to buy Go First. Now the lender's committee will decide in the coming days whether the bidding date will be extended or not.

The last date for bidding to buy Go First Airlines was 22 November 2023, but till then no one had expressed a desire to buy it. Now that three companies have expressed their desire to buy the airlines, it is expected that the lenders may agree to the demand for extending the date of bidding.

GoFirst owes Rs 6,521 crore to its lenders. Acute Ratings and Research had said in its January 19 report that the Central Bank of India had the highest exposure of Rs 1,987 crore, followed by Bank of Baroda at Rs 1,430 crore, Deutsche Bank at Rs 1,320 crore, and IDBI Bank at Rs 58 crore. was due.

Go First Airlines said on May 2 that it was canceling all its flights for May 3, 4, and 5. Since then, Go First has been continuously extending the date of suspending flights.

The airline claims that it has had to stop its operations due to a non-supply of engines. American aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney (PW) was to supply the engine to Go First, but it did not supply it on time. In such a situation, Go First had to ground more than half the aircraft of its fleet. Due to this, he suffered a huge loss.

Due to the flight not flying, he was short of cash and there was no money left even to fill the fuel. These engines are used in the airline's A20 Neo aircraft. The airline's CEO Kaushik Khona claims that the company has suffered a loss of 1.1 billion dollars i.e. about Rs 8.9 thousand crore in the last three years due to engine failure.

GoFirst is a budget airline of Wadia Group. According to the company's website, Go First was launched on April 29, 2004. Operated the first flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad in November 2005. The airline's fleet consists of 59 aircraft.

Of these, 54 aircraft are A320 NEO and 5 aircraft are A320 CEO. GoFirst operates its flights to 35 destinations. This includes 27 domestic and 8 international destinations. The airline changed its brand name from GoAir to GoFirst in the year 2021.