IndiGo is reportedly working with Pratt & Whitney to assess a potential impact on its fleet, following the engine maker’s warning on Tuesday. Pratt & Whitney’s owner Raytheon said that a “rare condition” in powdered metal meant that 1,200 of more than 3,000 engines, built for the twin-engined Airbus A320neo aircraft between 2015 and 2021, might have to be removed from the planes for inspection for micro cracks.
"We are working closely with P&W to assess and minimise any potential impact to our fleet," InterGlobe said in a statement on Wednesday, as per a report in news agency, Reuters.
Microscopic contaminants were found in a metal that’s been used in the engine’s high-pressure turbine discs, which are part of the engine core. Of the 1,200, 200 must be checked by mid-September as they have been in service for a while. The rest must undergo the same checks over the next year.
This comes after the budget carrier, in mid-June, announced that it has placed a record order to buy 500 A320 aircraft from Airbus. This 500 aircraft order is the largest-ever single aircraft purchase order by any airline. The order would be an exact mix of A320 and A321 aircraft, IndiGo had announced.
IndiGo currently has over 300 aircraft in its fleet. The airline has 480 jets, which are yet to be delivered. With the new orders and the pending ones, IndiGo’s order book has nearly 1,000 aircraft in the pipeline to be delivered into the next decade.
It must be mentioned that in 2021, IndiGo had announced a deal to buy 620 new LEAP 1A engines from CFM International to power 310 of its Airbus A320neo planes, a departure from its usual engine supplier of Pratt & Whitney. At that time, Pratt & Whitney engines were powering around 140 of the airline’s Airbus 320neo aircraft.
The new Pratt & Whitney concerns come on the heels of the Go First crisis. The low-cost airline that plunged into a financial crisis this year blamed faulty Pratt & Whitney engines for grounding of about half of its Airbus 320neo fleet. The engine maker said there was no merit in the argument and that Go First’s financial woes were of its own making.
Also read: IndiGo places record order for 500 Airbus A320 aircraft
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