P&W engine glitches still haunt IndiGo

Budget carrier grounds five A320 neo planes

Budget airline IndiGo on Wednesday said it has grounded five A320 neo aircraft due to Pratt & Whitney engine issues and these planes are expected to be back in operations in the second half of August.

The country's largest lowcost carrier, in terms of domestic market share, has grounded the planes at the international airport in the national capital.

It could not be immediately ascertained whether flight schedules were affected due to IndiGo taking out five planes from the services.

A senior official at aviation regulator DGCA said that it did not direct grounding of the planes and that the move was "routine maintenance issues within the airline".

An IndiGo spokesperson said that "a few A320 neos have been taken out of service pro-actively and await spare engines from Pratt & Whitney".

When contacted, the spokesperson confirmed that five A320 neo (new engine option) aircraft have been grounded. P&W engine woes had forced the airline to ground some of the A320 neo aircraft on earlier occasions also. "The release of additional spare engines has been initiated by P&W so that all aircraft are expected to be back in service in the second half of August," the spokesperson said in a statement. The spokesperson did not mention whether flight services have been disrupted due to the grounding of five planes. On an average, one aircraft is used for operating around 8 to 9 flights. It operates around 1,000 flights every day.