Airbus A320

Friends, in the last few weeks you must have heard about problems in Airbus A320 . India has largest fleet of  this type of  A 320 Aircrafts , Indigo has 32 such air crafts and GoAir is having 6.  Yesterday , Indigo passengers travelling on Ahmedabad- Lucknow route had a close shave, when one of engine mal functioned in the mid air during the flight and flight was brought back to originating station. This was 3rd mid night air scare in 3 weeks.

Immediately after yesterday’s incident civil aviation regulator DGCA grounded 11 Airbus A320 neo planes. These types of scares are happening for  last 2 years, and it has been reported in press that there were 69 such mid air scares till Sept 2017.

A320 aircraft are the most popular single aisle , twin engine air craft used for domestic flights in our India. The latest version A320 neo powered by  Pratt & Whitney (P&W) 1100 engines, has been suffering failures since its introduction in 2016. Up till now 113 PW powered A320 neos have been delivered to 18 operators in the world and 45 belong to 2 Indian Air carriers (Indigo and Go Air). DGCA  gave a statement that Indigo has 11  and Go Air has 3 air crafts which are fitted with the affected engines. Indigo’s 3 air crafts were grounded in Feb 2018 and yesterday 8 more were grounded with GoAir’s 3 air crafts.

There is a news floating  in air aviation circle is that why DGCA waited for so long for grounding such air crafts. DGCA should have grounded these air crafts in Feb 2018 only , when European air regulator grounded such air crafts. It is high time we should  realise that passengers’ safety is more important than commercial interest. Last month a PIL was filed in Bombay High Court, it had  sought  that DGCA should ground all the air crafts with PW engines.Last Friday, the HC had asked DGCA to file the reply.

Yesterday’s grounding of 11 air crafts is going to have  a high cascading affects on the numbers of air crafts operating commercial flights in the country.It has been estimated by aviation business circle that grounding of 11 Air crafts will affect almost 75 flights operations leading to loss of over 13,000 seats per day in domestic sector. With approaching vacation season from Apr 2017, and availability of less seats, it is envisaged that air fare are going to rise drastically. It has been reported that the cheapest  fare for flight leaving today from Mumbai  was  Rs 5500 for Delhi, Rs 3500 for Kochi and Rs 7400 for Kolkata. People connected with aviation circles have started saying that both Indigo and Go Air might pull out of of certain low yield or short haul sectors ,as some certain sectors  are packed to capacity like Mumbai – Delhi , the flight to the certain capacity sectors can not be curtailed. Hence it is but  natural that flights to certain short haul  will be curtailed by both the flight operators, as no flight operator will like to suffer loss by curtailing  the profit making sector.

It is Indian aviation sector’s luck that till date no serious accident happened with these A 320 air crafts fitted with faulty PW engines, but it was not right on the DGCA’s part to wait for almost a month after the first scare was reported about mal functioning of these engines. Secondly are the carriers Indigo and Go Air are going to sue for the loss, which they are going to incur till these 14 air crafts are re fitted with other tried and tested engines.

So what you say my friends.

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