IndiGo, India’s largest domestic airline, has earned a reprieve with the aviation regulator extending a deadline to replace Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines on its Airbus A320neo aircraft by four months to May 31, a senior government official said on Monday.
The move would help IndiGo temporarily avert what seemed an imminent grounding of a large number of planes for not meeting the previous deadline of January 31. IndiGo will, however, have to procure 135 engines, according to plans submitted to the DGCA, Airbus, and P&W, said the official mentioned above requesting anonymity. Under an earlier plan, IndiGo was required to change 120 P&W engines by December 2019. The number of engines to be replaced has risen because of stringent new boroscopic inspections to ensure zero snags of planes mid-air, the official said.
The airline has placed at least one modified engine in each of its P&W powered A320neo aircraft in its fleet ahead of the March 2020 deadline set by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
