Aviation watchdog DGCA has summoned two of India’s budget carriers Indigo and GoAir after reports surfaced of failure of another Airbus Neo aircraft. “An urgent meeting with GoAir and Indigo airlines has been called in the afternoon to review the performance of Airbus Neo aircraft in their fleet,” Directorate General of Civil Aviation said. These airlines have been facing glitch in the Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engine that is used in the A320 planes and the meeting may address the same issue, news agency PTI reported sources as saying. Several P&W engined Airbus A320 Neo planes have been grounded as a precautionary measure since 2016. The planes have faced glitches both mid-air and while on-ground.
Recently, India’s largest domestic carrier by passenger flown — IndiGo — had to ground the same plane due to technical glitches and the carrier had to take permission from DGCA to fly it without passengers for engine replacement. Seven other cases have been reported in previous fortnight regarding Neo Airbus engine failures. While the first failure dates back to three years and over 100 breakdowns have been recorded so far, the airlines are still using the faulty engines.
