Go Airlines asks firms's tribunal to urgently pass order on bankruptcy plea

Go Airlines asked country's company law tribunal to urgently pass an order on its insolvency plea, citing lessors' efforts to take back planes, per the court hearing

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) -Go Airlines (India) on Monday asked the country's company law tribunal to urgently pass an order on its insolvency plea, citing lessors' efforts to take back planes, per the court hearing.

The push comes less than a week after the cash-strapped Indian airline filed for bankruptcy, blaming "faulty" Pratt & Whitney engines for the grounding of about half its fleet.

On Monday, Go First lawyers told the tribunal to urgently pass an order on the airline's insolvency plea, saying its lessors had moved to repossess the planes even as bankruptcy proceedings were ongoing.

Meanwhile, Pratt & Whitney told a New Delhi arbitrator hearing its dispute with Go that the Indian airline's claim of defective engines causing its demise was "astounding" and without evidence. Go failed because of "its own poor management and events like Covid", Pratt said, according to legal documents.

Go's fall marked the first major airline collapse in India since full-service carrier Jet Airways filed for bankruptcy in 2019.

Go First's total debt to financial creditors was 65.21 billion Indian rupees ($798 million) as of April 28, it had earlier said in a bankruptcy filing with the National Company Law Tribunal.

($1 = 81.7570 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Arpan Chaturvedi in New Delhi; Writing by Rama Venkat and Dhanya Skariachan in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil)