Indigo gets more time to replace P&W engines

In a reprieve for IndiGo, which is facing problems with Pratt and Whitney (P&W) engines in some of its A320neo aircraft, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation

In a reprieve for IndiGo, which is facing problems with Pratt and Whitney (P&W) engines in some of its A320neo aircraft, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday extended the deadline to replace the unmodified engines by four months to May 31. The earlier deadline was January 31.

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IndiGo and GoAir have A320neo planes powered by P&W engines, which have been causing trouble since its induction in 2016.

Although Air India and Vistara also operate A320neo aircraft, their aircraft have CFM engines, which have not reported problems.

The DGCA statement read, “Post the DGCA order dated November 1, 2019, all stakeholders i.e. the airline, the aircraft and the engine manufacturer have made significant efforts towards completing the task. They have jointly submitted a complete action plan, which finds the change of engines for the entire fleet feasible by the end of June 2020.”

“It involves procurement of about 135 engines (for 97 aircraft) and month-wise details have been worked out to achieve the goal. Needless to say, the timeline looks impressive if we recall that originally it was expected to be accomplished in 14 months i.e., from November 2019 to December 2020,” the release added.

DGCA said it felt the deadline should be achievable by May 2020.

“..Therefore, the revised timeline for complete removal of unmodified engines from the fleet is May 31, 2020. It is further laid down that no aircraft with unmodified engine in Indigo fleet shall be allowed to fly after that,” DGCA stated.

Following four mid-air incidents in October 2019 involving IndiGo A320neo planes with P&W engines, where flights had to return to airports owing to stalling of engines, the DGCA, on November 1, 2019, had ordered the airline to replace these engines in 97 A320neo aircraft by January 31. A DGCA official explained that the airline has to replace at least one of the two P&W engines in the A320neos. IndiGo did not comment on the matter.

On November 25, the DGCA had ordered the airline to ground one old A320neo aircraft with an unmodified P&W engine for every new A320neo aircraft – with modified engines — added to its fleet. This was done to avoid large-scale cancellation of flights from January 31 onwards.

The DGCA has said that the unmodified P&W engines contain a turbine that has been shown as problematic and need to be replaced. IndiGo has 96 A320neo aircraft, though all of them are not in use, and GoAir has 41. GoAir has finished replacing the problematic engines.