They say the sky's the limit - but for some, their budget is too!

Travelling used to take days to reach the desired destination, but now we’re able to fly from one part of the world to the other within a matter of hours. Yet, as convenient and fast as it may be, finding tickets that won’t put a dent in one's wallet is hard.

Jehangir Wadia, the son of a wealthy and well-known Indian Businessman, wanted to combine convenience and affordability and reduce the congestion in Indian traffic. By offering cheap flights, Jehangir wanted to prompt everyone travelling by train to use his airline.

But the skies weren’t always blue for this prominent scion, as things would take a turbulent spin. Find out how his desire to revolutionize air travel caused a family feud within one of India’s most prominent families.

A Predetermined Life

Jehangir Wadia - or Jeh - is the youngest son of a well-known family in India. His pedigree is quite a significant one. He’s the great-grandson of the ‘Cotton King’ that turned Bombay into the cotton trading center of the world.

But it’s not only his great-grandfather that played a significant role in the Wadia family fortune. His grandmother was the daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah - the founder of Pakistan.

His father later inherited all of their wealth, and when the time came, he wanted to divide it to his two sons. Both of them were no strangers to the family business practices, having been surrounded by it from a young age. With such experience, it was a no-brainer that both would get a slice of the cake.

As expected from the powerful Wadia Family, Jeh had only the best offered to him when it came to education. He began his higher education in Sanawar at Lawrence School but later moved to England to graduate. Knowing that he could do much more, his next step was Warwick University, where he earned his master’s degree in science.

A Move in the Flight Direction

Most of Jeh’s future was already decided for him. Straight out of university, he was immediately pushed into the family business, which consisted of a few big companies all over India.

Jeh was placed as the managing director of Bombay Dyeing and its real estate division Bombay Realty. But this is not all. He was also the Director on the Boards of Britannia Industries, The Bombay Burmah Trading Corp, Wadia Techno – Engineering Services Limited, and a few others. Although his hands were filled with work, that didn’t stop him from dreaming of something more - a company that he himself had built from scratch. Being a top-notch businessman, Jeh started making comparisons between India and other countries economically. And that is when he hit the jackpot!

He found out that India was far behind other countries when it came to domestic aviation. People weren’t buying that many plane tickets, and there weren’t enough planes either.

That is why he set a mission for himself – help people in India see that they too can travel from one city to another by plane. And at an affordable price nonetheless!

Take Off

Jeh was a man set on a mission - to own the most prominent airline in India and revolutionize how people travelled across the country. Having set his heart on making his mission a reality, Jeh established Go Air in 2005.

Luck was on Jehangir’s side because his wealthy pedigree meant that Go Air had the financial support it needed to take off - by the Wadia Group.

Jeh’s initial idea was to start small and be small. This low cost-carrier initially operated with only 4 destinations with plans to expand to at least 30 more in the coming years. And in just three years, business took flight. By 2008 they announced they were ready to deal with 11 aircrafts and 2 new destinations.

At the same time, Jeh received an award from the World Economic Forum and was elected as a Young Global Leader. This, of course, reflected on the company as its value started to rise and became the fifth largest airline in India in 2012.

As the company grew, there were many talks with other airplane firms that wanted a piece of the action. In 2020, they were operating with around 330 daily flights to around 36 destinations - domestic and international!

But, the pandemic that followed took its toll.

The company began losing customers and that reflected badly on the Wadia Group. Nusli Wadia - Jeh’s father, was quick to show his dissatisfaction with his son’s “poor” choices.

All of this led to Jeh stepping down from this company as the Managing Director, a position he had held since the company was founded. But the biggest shocker to everyone was the revelation that he wasn’t just stepping down from Go Air, but from the rest of the companies as well! His brother Ness was appointed in his absence, but he quickly showed no signs of interest in the company. This left their 77-year-old father with no other option but to step up to the position himself and take over as a Managing Director.

After this twist in events, Jeh fully removed himself from the public’s eye. Nusli, on the other hand, made many changes in the company, including hiring the former CEO of Spirit Airlines, Ben Baldanza, as Vice-Chairman.

Right before his departure, Jeh had applied to the National Internet Exchange of India to transfer 115 domain names registered to the company. Go Air publicly opposed this and even threatened to take the necessary legal steps.

Subsequently, his father changed the name to Go First, driving the wedge between a father and son even further. Nonetheless, the company’s CEO Khona is the one who currently has the wheel and is still attempting to steer them back on the right track.

Funding Turbulence

Being part of the Wadia family meant that Go Air had a strong safety net. But Jeh wanted this to be his own accomplishment. So, in order to soften the blow that came from previous years and the pandemic, he filed for an IPO in May 2020.

This came as a shock to everyone. Go Air was the only airline in the world ever to try and raise money from the market in what was thought to be the gravest situation for aviation in all of history.

That was the last straw for his father, who opposed his decision. This inevitably led to Jeh stepping down from his position and leaving the company.

Initially, Jeh wanted to raise $491 million through an IPO, however considering that almost all of it would go to paying out their debt - the IPO naturally failed. Because of this, Nusli rebranded the company and moved over to their HQ in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, in order to deal with the deadlock position they were in.

Go First Today

Despite the many changes, Go First still managed to keep around 5000 people employed. After the rebranding, the company decided to take their previous economic method a step further and started marketing Go First as an ultra-low-cost airline.

Due to the state of the global economy amidst the raging Pandemic, Go First has filed for another IPO that’s yet to be resolved. Together with Jet Airways, Indigo, and Spice Jet, Go First is the fourth airline to file for an IPO, hopefully, a successful one this time. Although there are many skeptics for this whole change, the Board of Directors and the Key personnel are sure they can go through these hard times. With the permanent relocation of Nusli as the managing director, they believe that they are in the clear and Go First will yet reach its peak!