Indigo and GoAir cancel flights over faulty engines, here’s how you’ll be affected

After aviation industry regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) grounded eight A320neo planes of budget airline Indigo with faulty Pratt & Whitney engines, the airline has cancelled as many as 47 flights on Tuesday.

All flights cancelled are domestic flights scheduled for March 13. These are flights from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Patna, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Srinagar, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar, Guwahati, Raipur, Cochin, Coimbatore, Trivandrum, Indore, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, among others.

Indigo has published a full list of cancelled flights with alternate flight options on its website.

The DGCA on Monday directed IndiGo and GoAir to ground a total of 11 A320neo aircraft fitted with Pratt & Whitney engines. Out of the 11, eight are operated by IndiGo while GoAir operates three.

With this, all the A320neo aircraft with PW1100 engines beyond serial number 450 have been taken off operation in India.

“Both IndiGo and GoAir have been told not to refit these engines, which are spare with them in their inventory,” DGCA said.

This came after an Indigo flight from Ahmedabad to Lucknow returned to Ahmedabad due to mid-air engine failure within 40 minutes of taking off.

“While we understand that this may cause inconvenience to some of our passengers, given that we have multiple flights to the same destination, we are proactively re-accommodating all our affected passengers on other flights,” Indigo said in a statement.

Indigo has given passengers the option to either choose another flight at no additional cost or cancel their booking and get a full refund without any cancellation charges.

GoAir has said that it had complied straightaway after receiving the directive from the DGCA for immediate grounding of all late serial number PW GTF engines.

“GoAir is committed to the highest standards of safety and compliance, and we sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to our valued customers. We are altering flight schedules and communicating the same to those affected by the last minute changes; we are making all possible arrangements to minimise the impact,” it said in a statement.

While there is no communication on which flights have been cancelled by GoAir, it has removed 18 flights from its schedule.

In India, IndiGo operates about 1,000 flights daily. It carries about 40% of domestic fliers, while GoAir has a market share of around 10%.

Clarifying its position, Pratt & Whitney in a statement said, “We are working closely with our customers to minimise disruption. The corrective action has been approved and we have already begun to deliver production engines with the upgraded configuration.”