GoAir cancels two flights as A320 neo planes develop snag

A senior official at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said that EASA on Friday issued an emergency airworthiness directive for A320 neo planes fitted with PW1100 engines having a particular serial number.

Airbus brought the issue to the European aviation agency's attention, a spokesperson said, and the company has outlined safety recommendations for airlines until Pratt & Whitney can fix or replace the engines.

This is the second problem affecting Pratt & Whitney GTF engines since the start of their marketing, the first causing delays in 2017 in delivery of the A320neo, the re-engined version of Airbus' single-aisle plane. But Airbus has still parked around 30 otherwise completed aircraft at its manufacturing sites in Toulouse and Hamburg awaiting engines.

"Our precautionary measure of grounding the three aircraft resulted in cancellations of some of our flights".

"Product Safety Boards of P&W and Airbus, post evaluating the PW1100G-JM engine issue, have decided that all neo deliveries are on hold till further notice", IndiGo said in a regulatory filing.

EASA says several occurrences of engine IFSD and RTO have been reported on certain Airbus A320neo family aircraft, the A320neo and the larger A321neo. Airbus has issued an Alert Operators Transmission (AOT) providing instructions "to de-pair the affected engines and discontinue [ETOPS] for aircraft fitted with affected engines", according to EASA.

In total, about thirty engines, one or two engines per plane, are affected, according to a source close to the problem.

X This marks the latest setback for United Tech's Pratt & Whitney division and its Geared Turbofan (GTF) engines.

Not all of the engines are affected by the issue, though the spokesperson declined to say how many.