Biman Bangladesh's Kathmandu Flight Lands At Bihar Airport After Technical Glitch, All 77 Pax Safe: DGCA

Biman Bangladesh's Dhaka-Kathmandu flight lands at Patna airport after encountering a technical problem, said DGCA.

Biman Bangladesh's flight  371 from Dhaka To Kathmandu was on Friday diverted to Patna, Bihar due to a technical problem. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said that it landed at Patna safely at 12:00 IST. All 77 passengers onboard are safe, the DGCA added.

GoaFirst Crisis

Analysts have said that Go First's bankruptcy will boost airfares and give other domestic airlines a chance to raise their market share, as reported by Reuters. According to the report by the news agency, Jefferies' analyst Prateek Kumar in a client note wrote, "If the suspension is prolonged, other airlines that are adding capacity would look to avail the slots vacated by Go First and grab onto the market share."

The report also noted that on Wednesday, shares of IndiGo, India's largest airline, increased by over 8 per cent following the filing for bankruptcy by cash-strapped airline Go First, which attributed the grounding of approximately half of its fleet to "faulty" Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines.

"Indigo is facing a similar problem with P&W engines for some of its fleet but has been able to better maneuver the crisis owing to its much larger fleet size and better negotiations with the vendor," Kumar added.

Credit Suisse analysts have suggested in a note that lessors may be interested in allocating some of Go First's aircraft to IndiGo within India due to a similar fleet type. This development could benefit IndiGo by increasing its market share and improving yields in a capacity-constrained environment.

However, Go First Airlines' CEO Kaushik Khona has said that the owner Wadia Group is completely committed to the airline and is not planning to exit.

A report by Mint noted that according to DGCA data, in the first quarter of 2023, Go First carried 29.11 lakh passengers, which gave them a market share of 7.8 per cent. In the same period, Air India and Vistara, both belonging to Tata Group, had a market share of 9 per cent and 8.8 per cent, respectively. Meanwhile, Indigo, a leading low-cost carrier, maintained its dominance with a market share of 55.7 per cent and carried 209.07 lakh passengers in the January-March 2023 quarter.