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In India, flyers' concerns, these days can be traced neither to any Boeing plane nor to 'flight-shame' but to Airbus 320neo aircraft equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines. Without transparency on their safety, one really can’t presume passengers to board these aircraft with the trust one would usually take for granted.
The civil aviation authorities in India have stepped up investigation of engines on Airbus SE’s A320neo jets, pushing the country’s largest airline, IndiGo, to have to substitute 130 engines.
According to Arun Kumar, the head of India civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) a more profound boroscopic examination” of engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney has recognised more engines at danger of shutting down in midair. Out of roughly 200 engines in use, IndiGo, the airline having the most number of such engines, will now have to replace at least 130. Earlier, India’s civil aviation minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, had put this figure as 110.
IndiGo's miseries surge as DGCA steps up inspection of Airbus engines
Airbus 320 (neos), fitted with PW engines, are facing a lot of problems. The DGCA had requested IndiGo early November to replace earlier PW engines in all aircraft by the end of January after a spate of events on the airline's Airbus 320 (neos), operated on PW engines.
The increased examination will attach additional pressure on IndiGo as it could considerably delay its expansion plans. IndiGo has been forbidden from adding new routes or flights until it substitutes all faulty engines. That could also add to pressure on Pratt, a unit of United Technologies Corp., to direct more engines to IndiGo.
Kumar said the DGCA would decide in mid-January 2020 whether to grant IndiGo more time — beyond the current Jan. 31 deadline — before it started ordering some planes be grounded. The affected planes have continued to fly while the work is being done since they have two engines.
Kumar added that IndiGo has fully embraced a revised take-off process that doesn’t apply full thrust on the engines, a practice the DGCA had associated with repeated in-flight turbine breakdowns.
Budget carrier IndiGo is the biggest customer for Airbus’ best-selling A320neo series, at a time when demand for Airbus jets has towered. A competitive model made by Boeing Co. has been grounded since March 2019 following two fatal crashes that killed more than 300 people.
IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., is the largest budget carrier in Asia by market value and has been appending jets at a breakneck speed of more than one a week.
IndiGo is the only domestic carrier India which operates 1,500 flights a day, a feat which has never been accomplished before. The airline currently has a fleet of 249 planes and operates to 83 destinations, including 23 international ones and flies over 0.25 million passengers a day. IndiGo now operates on an average one flight per minute. Recently, IndiGo became a member of the international airline's body, IATA.
Ashmita Sethi, Pratt’s newly appointed head for India, has said“We continue to work closely with the DGCA as part of our ongoing engagement, to ensure that we keep to schedules.”
Airbus said it was “working closely with Pratt & Whitney and the DGCA to maintain the schedule for engine deliveries.”
Three airlines in Asia, including in India, are the ones reporting the most maximum number of occurrences with Airbus 320 (neos). European safety agency EASA and the US safety agency FAA have also issued similar engine replacement orders for Airbus 320 (neos) operating in the country because the onus is on these aviation safety agencies to perform and assure secure operations.
GoAir also runs Airbus 320 (neos) fitted with PW engines but the DGCA did not ask for any change as the fleet size was low.
IndiGo has ordered the next batch of engines from CFM. Besides announcing orders of 280 CFM engines and 300 Airbus aircraft to fuel its future growth.