GoAir grounds 7 planes for maintenance ahead of sub-leasing; aircraft expected to be back in operation by end of month

Mumbai: The Wadia group-promoted GoAir has been operating with curtailed capacity as seven of its planes, including three A320 Neos, are out of operations for the past two-three weeks due to major repair work. All these aircraft are expected to be back into operations by the end of the month, helping the low-cost carrier meet the summer vocation demand beginning next month, a source said. The third largest domestic carrier with an 8.7 percent market share has 47 aircraft comprising 30 A320 Neos and the remaining A320 Ceos. “GoAir has taken seven planes—four A320 Ceos and three A320 Neos—for mandatory major maintenance work, considering the lean demand period, resulting in their grounding,” a source told PTI on Tuesday. The airline also plans to phase out all its A320 Ceos (current engine options) planes through subleasing to other carriers and replace them with A320 Neo (new engine options), the source said. [caption id=“attachment_3093042” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “The airline has taken seven planes—four A320 Ceos and three A320 Neos—for mandatory major maintenance work, considering the lean demand period, resulting in their grounding. Moreover, the airline is looking to sublease the A320 Ceos and is getting all required overhaul before sending them out,” the source said. The airline, in a statement, said maintenance and engineering checks are essential parts of its business strategy and network planning and it will not affect its operations in any manner. An airline has to factor in lean and peak seasons from multiple perspectives, including sales, marketing and maintenance of the aircraft, it said, adding these checks are done purely from a sales-demand perspective, it added. “We undertake scheduled maintenance and engineering checks of all our aircraft every January, February and March, so that we have the maximum capacity to cater to in the ensuing peak season,” GoAir said. The airline also said it eventually plans to have only A320 Neos and as part of this it is looking to sublease most of the A320 Neos. “Therefore these aircraft have to undergo re-delivery engineering checks as well,” it said. The city-based airline currently operates over 1,600 flights a week connecting 24 domestic and four international destinations.