Go First flights continue to be late; airline aims for better punctuality

The airline posted an on-time performance of 16% on 13 November, worse than its performance on 12 November and 11 November at 18% and 31% respectively. This meant that over 85% of Go First flights were late on 13 November, 82% flights were impacted on 12 November and nearly 70% flights were running late on 11 November. DGCA considers a departure to be delayed if it takes more than 15 minutes for the plane to take off from the time it rolls off the bay.

While the disruption currently is widespread, the airline is working on minimising the passenger inconvenience and expects delivery of engines and aircraft over the near term to ease the situation, as per a company official.

“The airline is in active discussions with Pratt & Whitney and expects delivery of 11-16 engines shortly. This will help it to ramp up operations as more aircraft will become active. The airline has recently received two aircraft over the last months, and two more are set to be inducted by December. As this is the peak travel season, capacity constraints are having an impact. The airline is in the process of rescheduling its operations in order to cause minimum impact on network and improve passenger experience,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

It has been a peculiar performance of Go First in the punctuality meter over the last five years. Since 2018, the airline has been the most punctual airline for 17 out of 55 months, as per the monthly data from DGCA with an average monthly on-time performance of 83.3%. However, its best phase in time-keeping was recorded since September 2018 until November 2019 when it was the most punctual airline for a consecutive period of 15 months. The other two times when the airline has been most punctual in the last five years was in April 2019 and January 2022. In fact, in 2022, the position of Go First has shifted from being the most punctual in January 2022 to the least punctual in September 2022. The airline had a market share of 7.9% and an on-time performance of 63.1%, as per September data from DGCA.

“I have been getting complaints from my clients. A Mumbai-Bengaluru flight which was supposed to take off at 8:15 PM has been departing around 1-2 AM for last 3-4 days. We have heard similar complaints for other routes such as Mumbai-Goa, Delhi-Guwahati, Delhi-Srinagar, Delhi-Mumbai among others. Jaipur-Bengaluru flight on Nov 12 was actually delayed by over 11 hours, it finally took off around 11:30 PM as against the take-off time of 12:30 PM,” a travel agent said

One flight delay is leading to widespread network issues as the airline already has capacity issues due to delay in delivery of engines and aircraft, so the repercussions do not stop at one route or one day, it takes days to settle down to the regular schedule, an analyst said.

The airline is currently operating only 45% of its fleet of 59 aircraft with nearly 30 aircraft not in operations due to need of spare parts, as per a data analysis by Mint from Flightradar24.

Go First is already running a curtailed winter schedule which came into effect from Oct 30 for period until Mar 25. As per the winter schedule published by DGCA, the airline has been approved to operate 1390 flight departures per week, around 40% decline from its winter schedule of 2021 and pre-pandemic levels as well.