GoAir was conceived by Jeh Wadia of India's Wadia Group, a major long-established diversified industrial conglomerate, with the objective of "making domestic travel in India an affordable commodity". The carrier was launched in November 2005, initially with one A320 operating six flights a day. Former Spicejet COO, Mark Winders, joined Go as Executive Director in Jan-07. Go Air recently appointed Bollywood actress, Preity Zinta, as its brand ambassador.

The fiercely competitive Indian civil aviation industry, with numerous existing players and many more waiting to start, is facing ever increasing operating costs which affect the profitability of the sector as a whole. GoAir is currently in equity sale talks with private investors. A reported 20-26% stake in the airline may be sold in 2007. Meanwhile, GoAir is publicly leading the push for regulatory reform to permit the outsourcing of ground handling and maintenance in order to lower operating costs.

GoAir serves Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Mumbai, and Srinagar.

In line with India's fledgling but rapidly growing PC and personal credit card industries, GoAir's distribution strategy has, like many of its competitors, used innovative avenues for distribution: as well as online bookings, travel agents, retail and self-help outlets, it introduced GoTravel Agents, GoTata Indicom Outlets, GoInlott outlets, GoCyber café and GoPCOs, and the airline's call centre. In Jan-07, GoAir contracted to use Radixx Air Enterprise to power some of its airline management programmes, including consumer web, travel agent and airline call centre reservations, revenue management and accounting and check-in programmes.

Copyright Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation