AI engineering wing inks deal with P&W to maintain engines

Air India Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL), Air India Ltd’s engineering wing has signed a contract with aircraft engine maker, Pratt & Whitney (P&W), for maintaining engines, including the problematic ones fitted on Airbus A320neos.

The plan comes amidst glitches in P&W engines, resulting in several mid-air scares. Since January 2019, there have been several incidents in India involving the new Airbus A320neos fitted with P&W engines; in many of these cases the aircraft were forced to turn around.

The New Engine Option (neo) is an upgrade carried out by European aircraft maker Airbus on its aircraft such as A320, A319 and A321 from the CEO (current engine option). Neo engines are more fuel-efficient, which in turn reduces the total cost of operations. IndiGo has 106 such aircraft in its fleet, the largest A320neo fleet in the world. GoAir has 41. The aircraft were inducted at the end of 2016. In 2018, 11 IndiGo and 3 GoAir aircraft were grounded after problems.

Air India and Vistara also have A320neo aircraft, but these are powered by CFM Leap-1A engines. The glitches have been caused by certain series of P&W engines. Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation or DGCA has directed IndiGo to replace engines with modified ones by May 31. This is an extension of the original deadline of January 31, 2020.

The P&W collaboration with Air India will have two phases. In the first phase, Air India will facilitate the removal and transport of engines to P&W facilities in United States. In the second phase, AIESL will repair the engines in India, making it the first such maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) here by the company. The work is expected to be done at AIESL’s Nagpur facility.

Executives in Air India familiar with the matter confirmed that P&W and AIESL signed the contract early this month.

The engine maker has started training AIESL engineers at its Bangalore centre. “Once the training and manuals are ready, AIESL will apply for DGCA approval and also seek approval from European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) later on,” one of the executives said.

Even though the executives confirmed that work under the first phase has started, none of the parties have officially shared any the details of the progress made under the plan.

Pratt&Whitney did not issue a comment or statement on the matter. However, P&W officials who did not wish to be identified, confirmed the developments and said that a media announcement regarding this is expected soon.

A second Air India executive said one engine from an IndiGo aircraft “ has already arrived at Mumbai facility and AIESL will start the work on it soon. “It will take a fortnight for the engine to be sent abroad and for work to be completed on one engine, so maintenance work on only 3-4 engines are expected to be performed in the next three months.”

Besides asking engine maker to address the issues, DGCA has ordered grounding of aircraft with problematic engines in addition to replacement of faulty engines with new ones. However, it has not yet ordered grounding of entire fleet of P&W engine-powered A320Neo family aircraft in the fleet of two airlines. IndiGo and GoAir have not shared the details of the number of aircraft that currently need modified engines.