Bankruptcy protection and a complete freeze on the airline’s assets and leases have been given to Go First by the National Company Law Tribunal in India. The airline’s lessors, which include Sky High XCV Leasing, ACG Aircraft Leasing Ireland, and SMBC Aviation Capital, are prohibited by court order from repossessing their leased planes. This is the quickest an application for insolvency has ever been approved, hence the verdict is historic. With this order in place, a profitable airline will not go bankrupt. According to Kaushik Khona, CEO of Go First, “rebirth” has always been the goal of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. All of the airline’s assets and properties will remain unaltered until the bankruptcy is finalised, suggesting that the company may seek protection for some of them under the bankruptcy code. According to the court’s order, an interim resolution professional will immediately assume control of the airline. The Indian panel also mandated that the airline’s current operations, including those of its 27 aircraft, must be maintained and that no employees be let go. The airline grounded roughly half of its aircraft due to “faulty” Pratt & Whitney engines and filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

Indian Hotels Company, parent company of the Taj, has signed a contract for a Vivanta hotel in New Gurugram, Haryana, in northern India. The 160-room hotel is part of a larger mixed-use project that will be built in collaboration with KPDK Buildtech, a Delhi-based developer. This hotel brings IHCL’s total number of hotels under the Taj, Vivanta, SeleQtions, and Ginger brands in the National Capital Region to 16, with another four now in the planning stages. The Tata-owned hotel chain has inked two new greenfield projects, one in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with 130 rooms under the Vivanta brand, and another in Jamshedpur, scheduled to open in 2024.

According to Thomas Cook (India)-SOTC Travel’s India Holiday Report – May 2023, over 84% of respondents questioned in India have stated greater willingness to travel in the next six months, up from 45% pre-pandemic. Eighty-two percent of respondents said they take many mini-cations in addition to one or more long holidays, and they are willing to pay a 20 percent premium for their trips. It’s also interesting to see a burgeoning travel appetite emerging from even the most provincial and isolated parts of India, driven in part by the ‘you only live once’ mentality of Generation Z and millennial tourists. Despite visa restrictions, travellers from India choose to visit Switzerland, France, Spain, and Italy over popular domestic locations like Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Ladakh.

Approximately 28 percent of all tourists to Nepal this year came from India, which accounted for 92,185 arrivals in the first four months. Compared to April of last year, when there were 22,476 Indian visitors to Nepal, this year there were 31,437. Forty Indians, including ten women, have been granted permits to summit mountains in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, the ninth- and tenth-highest peaks respectively. Last month, the two countries came to an agreement on implementing a system that would allow Indian visitors in Nepal to use Indian e-wallets to make digital payments.

Moody’s Investors Service predicted that Oyo Hotels & Homes, an Indian cheap hotel company, would have EBITDA (profit) of $50 million to $55 million for the current fiscal year. Nearly $97 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation is what Oyo founder and group CEO Ritesh Agarwal promised staff in a townhall two months before Moody’s announcement. The B3 corporate family rating and stable outlook of Oyo parent company Oravel Stay were also reaffirmed by Moody’s. “The stable outlook reflects our view that the company will maintain adequate liquidity buffers to support its operations until it turns cash flow positive over the next 12 to 18 months,” said Sweta Patodia, an assistant vice president and analyst at Moody’s.

Part of the Tata Group The deadline for employees to take advantage of Air India’s voluntary retirement programme has been extended from April 30 to May 31, 2023. This is the second offer made by the Tata Group since they took ownership of the money-losing airline in January. The company made the first offer in March to its non-flying workers. Officers in the permanent general cadre who have reached age 40 and served the airline for at least five years continuously will be eligible to take advantage of a voluntary offer, as announced in March. Clerical and unskilled workers who have put in at least five years of continuous service will also qualify. The initial part of Air India’s retirement programme began in June 2022.

Suba Group of Hotels, a homegrown hospitality company and master franchisee of Choice Hotels India, recently announced the opening of a 39-room Click Hotel Ayra in Seshadripuram, Bengaluru, Karnataka, South India. The 27-room Clarks Collection Dehradun has just opened in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. In order to go from a direct franchise market to a master franchise model, Choice Hotels struck a 15-year agreement with the Suba Group in July of last year. Suba had taken on the role of master franchise holder for 58 of its existing and future locations at that time. Clarion, Quality, and Comfort are all trademarks that belong to the corporation.

After missing previous dates in January and June 2022, the new international airport in Halwara in the north Indian state of Punjab is scheduled to be operational by September. According to the state’s public works agency, the terminal building should be completed by the end of July. Successful bids have been awarded, and construction is moving forward. The airport terminal would improve transport options in the Army neighbourhood. At first, there was a snag since the contract for the internal roadways had to be cancelled and reassigned. Once construction is finished, the Airports Authority of India will take charge,” the official said. When completed, the airport will make air travel more convenient for businesspeople and students in Ludhiana and the surrounding areas.

SOURCE :- https://skift.com/2023/05/10/india-daily-go-first-airline-gets-bankruptcy-protection/