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In a breather to GoAir and IndiGo, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has extended the deadline for the two airlines to replace all the 60 unmodified Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines on their A320neo planes by three months. .
The earlier deadline to replace these engines was May 31, however, neither of them were able to do so. “About 60 engines are yet to be replaced by the two airlines combined. The obvious reason was Covid-19 impact and the resultant lockdowns,” said the official requesting anonymity.
The pandemic has not only impacted the Indian civil aviation industry but, the global aviation industry, too. The lockdown in India has made it difficult for airlines to adhere to these deadlines, thus, “We took a call couple of days back and instructed both the Airlines,” the person added.
“Supply chains and production lines all got impacted and in turn disturbed the process. Keeping all this in view, we have extended the deadline by 3 months; up to August 31,” said the person.
GoAir has, on the other hand, resumed partial operations from June 1. On Monday, the airline started off with 24 flights including three from Mumbai.
IndiGo has 106 PW powered A320Neo planes in its fleet while GoAir has 43 of them. Also, “we have instructed the respective airline that for the current times, aircraft with both engines, modified should be flown and this should not be difficult as the curtailed operations are likely to last for some more time.”
Currently, IndiGo is operation only 200 flights out of 1500, using only aircraft wherein engines have been modified. “We had about 60 per cent aircraft with modified engines by February 2020. So pretty good as of now to operate from that fleet,” said a source speaking about IndiGo.
Both IndiGo and GoAir remained unavailable to comment
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