New Delhi : Grounded passenger jets of no-frills airlines IndiGo and GoAir will take to the skies again by the end of April, said Pratt & Whitney (P&W) President Robert F. Leduc.
“You may have seen that the Indian authorities took a decision to ground the fleet in India that have engines of this that had the design escape. We’re disappointed with that decision, but I can tell you that by the end of April, that fleet will be back up in the air flying in India,” Leduc said during a recent UTC investors’ call. P&W is a subsidiary of UTC.
“So I think the three key points that you should take away is we’re back in production, we’re going to retrofit and rework the 55 engines that we shipped previously back to Airbus. We will make our full year production commitment to Airbus.
“We have a commitment to them, there’s still a certain amount of engines to support their aircraft delivery profile. We will make those deliveries. Admittedly, the timing is a little bit skewed because of the first quarter and having to rework engines, but we will catch that up primarily by the end of the third quarter. The fleet will be completely back in the sky by the end of April,” he added.
One more IndiGo jet grounded
MUMBAI: IndiGo on Sunday had to pull out one of its A320neo planes from operation after metal chips were detected in its jet’s engine oil in New Delhi airport and another jet due to a hydraulic leakage at Srinagar airport.
The airline was forced to ground the A320neo aircraft, bearing registration number VT-ITX, after metal chips were detected in the engine oil after it completed the Bengaluru-New Delhi flight. Later, the commander of its Delhi-Srinagar flight reported a hydraulic leakage from engine 2 of the A320neo upon its arrival at Srinagar, making it the fourth incident since the grounding of eight such planes from IndiGo’s fleet on March 12.