I write this from the flight deck mindset: when a single system that every aircraft in your fleet depends on becomes unreliable, the ripple effects are immediate and operationally brutal. Go First is not the first operator to face a supplier reliability crisis and it will not be the last. What matters for crews, operations controllers and safety managers is how the airline and its suppliers handle spares, shop visit cadence and the business rules that let planes fly or force them to sit.
Here is what is operationally relevant about the situation as of early April 2023. Go First has been reporting elevated numbers of A320neo aircraft removed from service for engine work. Those aircraft-on-ground reduce daily available capacity, complicate crew rosters, eat into maintenance shop capacity and push the airline into paying fixed costs while revenue falls. Lessors have been pressing the carrier over missed or deferred lease payments. Those lessor actions can quickly escalate to deregistration threats which permanently remove airframes from the operator’s planning baseline if not resolved. The combination of rising AOG, missed lessor payments and shrinking market share is a credible path to insolvency risk if not remediated promptly.
From a pilot and operations perspective the technical problem is familiar. Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan family has delivered fuel burn gains but has also faced durability and combustor related removals for some operators since introduction. Those failures manifest as more frequent unscheduled removals and longer shop visits. When removals outpace the supply of serviceable spare engines or the shop throughput to repair them, airlines cannot maintain the planned utilization of their A320neo fleet. That gap between expected time-on-wing and actual removals is what turns a maintenance headache into an operational crisis.
Why spares matter more than you might think on paper
A modern narrowbody operator runs a tight engine rotation. Leasing or pooling arrangements for spare engines are part of the commercial equation. If an OEM or an MRO cannot provide swap engines quickly enough, the airline must wait for each shop visit to finish. Each grounded aircraft not only loses daily revenue but still generates parking, lease and insurance charges. For a low cost carrier operating with thin margins and high aircraft utilization assumptions, a wave of aircraft-on-ground is a direct and rapid cash drain. In this case the carrier’s lessors have started putting the operational pressure back on the airline, increasing the chances of deregistration or repossession if cash flows do not recover.
Operational consequences you will see on the schedule
- Short notice cancellations and route reductions as the airline pares back flying to match available aircraft.
- Rostering imbalances with crew hours and rest patterns stretched and then compressed to cover remaining flying blocks.
- Increased single-pilot or crew-day fatigue risks from last-minute swaps, especially during peak travel periods.
- Deferred maintenance backlog or cannibalization of parts to keep some aircraft moving, which raises safety governance issues if not closely constrained.
All of these are routine outcomes when spares are scarce. Regulators and safety managers watch for signs of degraded margins of safety when commercial pressure forces operational workarounds. The root fix is technical and commercial: reliable engines and predictable repair capacity coupled with contractual clarity about spares and compensation.
What carriers and regulators should take from Go First’s case
1) Contingency plans are not optional. Operators need playbooks that explicitly address multi-aircraft-on-ground scenarios over multi-week horizons. That means pre-authorised pooling arrangements, cross-fleet swaps where possible, and a prioritized recovery plan for core routes.
2) Contracts need clearer spares commitments. Engine deals should include explicit minimum spare-engine delivery timelines and fail-safe remedies. If an OEM supplies both engines and a spare pipeline, the service agreement must align with operational realities: removal rates, expected shop visit time, and seasonal demand spikes.
3) Diversify risk where practical. Relying on a single engine type for the majority of a fleet concentrates technical and commercial risk. Airlines that can plan for mixed engine types or staged fleet transitions reduce the chance that a single supplier problem will cascade into a fleet crisis.
4) Regulators must monitor systemic maintenance bottlenecks. Airworthiness authorities should track fleet-wide engine removal patterns and ensure MRO capacity and supply chain constraints are visible to national regulators so they can advise carriers and lessors appropriately.
5) Preserve crew and maintenance practice integrity. When commercial pressure mounts, preserving conservative maintenance decision making and crew rest rules preserves safety. That requires governance that keeps emergency commercial fixes from becoming unsafe operational shortcuts.
Bottom line and immediate actions for operators
Operational realism means planning for the worst while working the fix. For an LCC, that means building cash buffers or credit lines to cover lease and parking costs during an AOG spike. It means negotiating immediate temporary spares access and accelerated shop visits with the OEM and lessors. It means being transparent with regulators and customers about capacity so rescheduling becomes manageable rather than chaotic.
From a pilot and ops-eye view, the GTF reliability issues highlight a classic mismatch: manufacturers promise improved life cycle economics but have to prove durability in real operations. When reality diverges from contract expectations, the result is operational risk, reputational damage and real financial stress for airlines that operate on thin margins. The right mix of contract discipline, contingency planning and regulatory oversight is the practical fix. If those elements are missing, insolvency is a possible outcome rather than a distant fear.