DGCAwon’t ground A320 Neos over engines glitches

Mumbai, Feb. 12: The aviation regulator DGCA has ruled out grounding the Pratt & Whitney- powered Airbus A320Neo fleet despite the recurring serious safety issues with the faulty new engines.

Budget carrier IndiGo, which is the largest operator of these planes in the country, and GoAir being the other one, have already grounded three such planes following an emergency airworthiness directive from the European Aviation Safety Agency ( Easa) on this issue.

“No ( there is no such plan),” was the response of director- general of civil aviation B. S. Bhullar in response to a query, seeking to know whether there was any move on the part of the regulator to ground the entire Pratt & Whitney- powered Airbus A320 Neo planes.

It can be noted that this is in sharp contrast to the stance taken by the regulator during the UPA government when Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners faced battery fire issues prompting DGCA to order grounding of all B- 787s shortly after an order by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

“Certainly, we will not fly the Dreamliners until the FAA and our DGCA give clearance,” then aviation minister Ajit Singh had said on the grounding of these planes.

Significantly, last time also, despite IndiGo reportedly facing 69 Neo engine ( earlier ones) failures between March 2016 and September 2017 and GoAir too reporting a good number of in- flight disruptions due to the engine woes, the DGCA did not take any tough stand.