Pratt & Whitney opposes India’s Go Airlines’ push to enforce arbitration

(Reuters) – Pratt & Whitney opposed Go Airlines’ bid to impose an arbitration award against the US supplier of spare engines, a Delaware court filing shows.

The airline, widely known as Go First, has approached a Delaware court after winning an arbitration order in Singapore against Pratt & Whitney, which it said failed to provide the engines on time.

The low-cost carrier, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, has plunged into a financial crisis this year, sparked by what it calls “faulty” Pratt & Whitney engines that have grounded about half of its 54 Airbus A320neos.

GoFirst’s claim that the engines provided caused its demise is unfounded, and the airline’s years-long failure to pay maintenance and lease fees it contracted has led to the necessary suspension of its maintenance, repair and operation services, the US engine maker, which is part of Raytheon Technologies, said. .

Attorneys for Pratt & Whitney said there was no basis for GoFirst’s claim that International Aero Engines (IAE), whose shareholder is Pratt & Whitney, intended to cause GoFirst to fail.

The lawyers said GoFirst was not “a victim in need of urgent legal relief” but in fact “an insolvent airline that materially breached its contractual obligations to Experts over several years by failing to pay tens of millions of dollars that Go First undoubtedly owed.” .”

Go First filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday and has currently suspended all flights for “operational reasons” and is not taking new bookings.

Its website showed that other IAE shareholders are Pratt & Whitney Aero Engines International, Japanese Aero Engine Corporation, and MTU Aero Engines.

(Reporting by Janavi Nedumulu and Mike Scarcella in Bengaluru, New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)