By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: As many as 84 flights of India’s largest domestic carrier IndiGo were cancelled on Friday due to issues with engines of 12 of its planes. The budget airline admitted that 12 of its planes were grounded on Friday and sources said that it was the grounding of these fuel-efficient planes which led to such huge cancellations.
An aviation expert explained that one plane typically does about six-seven flights a day depending on the sector, and the non-operation of 12 aircraft therefore, impacted the operation of 84 flights.
Sources told the Express that IndiGo, which had grounded nine A320 NEO planes due to the engine issues in June quarter, has grounded four other planes — CEO aircraft — for the time being and the grounding of these fuel-efficient planes is leading to the cancellation of its flights.
In a statement issued on late Friday evening, IndiGo confirmed grounding of a dozen planes. It said, “Four of our CEO aircraft are grounded due to the engines being stuck at customs. We are awaiting certain clarifications post the implementation of GST, which has led to unplanned flight cancellations... At present, 8 Neos are grounded because of the unavailability of spare engines. These have already been factored in our revised schedule which was finalized in June and there are no additional flight cancellations on account of these Neos.”
The budget-carrier operates approximately 900 flights daily across the country which roughly means that four out of every 10 passengers in India are flown by IndiGo. Sources said most of the planes that were grounded are at Delhi airport. They added that a total of 667 flights have been cancelled by IndiGo between June 21 and July 3 this year, with 61 flights cancelled on June 27 alone, due to the grounding of these planes.
In a statement issued earlier in the day, the Gurgaon-based budget carrier said that it had already factored in the impact of the grounding of these planes in its July-September schedule.
Pertinently, one of the airline’s planes experienced an engine failure this month. Earlier this month, Directorate General of Civil Aviation had expressed concern over the grounding of the A320 PW Neo engine powered aircraft after it reviewed the progress made by the US engine maker in fixing the glitches.
