Troubles mounted for GoAir as the airline temporarily lost slots and foreign bilateral rights to other airlines including Air India and IndiGo, reported ToI. For the airlines of a particular country to operate international flights to another country, the two sides have to negotiate and sign a “bilateral air services agreement”, which decides how many flights (or seats) per week can be allowed to fly from one country to the other.

Even after such flying rights are allocated to an airline, it must have slots at both the airports in order to start flight operations. A slot is a date and time at which an airline’s aircraft is permitted to depart or arrive at an airport. The slots are allocated by a committee that consists of civil aviation ministry and DGCA officials, airport operators and airlines, among others.

Read More: GoFirst loses a suitor as EaseMyTrip’s founder Nishant Pitti withdraws bid

The decision of Civil Aviation Ministry comes in a bid help air passengers. Other airlines in the sector can now official retain rights of the bankcrupt airline after getting nod from the Centre.

“All airport slots that GoAir had are gone. Their bilaterals were temporarily distributed mainly among Air India, Vistara and IndiGo. Akasa asked for Go’s Dubai flying rights (it has so far got the same for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar). Airlines will ask the Ministry whether the temporarily distributed slots and bilaterals of Go will be put in a general pool and then given as per airlines’ needs,” reported ToI quoting officials of several airlines. The report added that the distribution of slots has been happening for quote a while now.

Tata Group’s Air India and IndiGo are adding almost a plane every week to their fleet. AI Express and Akasa also plan to grow rapidly, despite being affected by Boeing’s issues with the B737 MAX — the plane these two airlines have ordered.Earlier, online travel company EaseMyTrip’s CEO Nishant Pitti on Saturday announced that the company has decided to withdraw its bid for airline to concentrate on its areas of strength. “We have decided to withdraw from the GoAir bid to concentrate on our core areas of strength. Our focus remains on leveraging our expertise and resources to achieve sustainable growth and success,” said Pitti. Go First, formerly owned by the Wadia group, is embroiled in a legal battle with P&W at the Singapore Court of Arbitration in which the airline has claimed about Rs 8,000 crore compensation, blaming its bankruptcy to the failure of P&W engines forcing it to ground many aircraft.

Go First owes creditors more than Rs 6,200 crore. Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and IDBI Bank are the secured creditors, with admitted claims of Rs 1,934 crore, Rs 1,744 crore and Rs 75 crore, resp ..

(with agency inputs)