GoFirst, the Mumbai-based airline that went in for bankruptcy on May 2 for being unable to financially sustain its operations, approached the Delaware court in the US saying that at least 92 percent of its aircraft are powered by Pratt and Whitney’s (P&W) Geared Turbo Fan (GTF) engines. This means that 25 aircraft or 50 percent of its Airbus A320neo fleet, as of May 1, 2023, have been grounded. IndiGo is the only other Indian carrier whose Airbus 320neo aircraft are also powered by PW GTF engines.
Sources explained that the GTF engines, which were the most fuel-efficient for the Airbus 320neo family when they were introduced, do come with some problems. The GTF is a gear in the engine which reduces the rotational speed of the engine and allows for the use of the fan even at a lower speed.
Earlier, P&W was the only manufacturer producing these engines but now other manufacturers like Safran have started making them and Air India and IndiGo have shifted to the new engines.
“There have been reports of vibrations in bearing three of the GTF engines which led to the aircraft experiencing issues,” said a pilot who has flown an aircraft powered by this variety of engine.
GoFirst decided to purchase 72 A320neos in 2019 which were to be powered by Pratt and Whitney engines. In the last couple of years, apart from supply chain management issues due to Covid and then the Ukraine war, there were other issues with GTF leading to a number of incidents on flights operated by IndiGo and GoFirst forcing the aviation watchdog, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), to take action in this regard.
However, with demand for aircraft coming back after the Covid-19 pandemic, Airbus is said to be keen to place the new P&W engines on newly delivered aircraft and pay compensation for older aircraft which also need the new P&W engines.
Back in 2019, DGCA had mandated that the Indian carriers will have to replace the faulty engines before inducting a new aircraft of this variety.
In January 2020, IndiGo and GoFirst won a reprieve when the DGCA extended a January 31 deadline for modification of PW engines installed on their A320neo planes to May-end.
Again, in March this year, the DGCA took up issues with P&W after more than 60 Airbus aircraft were grounded due to maintenance problems and a lack of spare parts.
In its filing in the Delaware Court on May 2, GoFirst said that between 2016 and February 2023, the airline carried out 289 Engine Changes (that is, replacing a failed, and thus unserviceable, engine with a serviceable engine) and 221 Engine Swaps (that is, the removal of a serviceable engine from a grounded aircraft to install it on a second aircraft also with only one serviceable engine) so that the second aircraft that has two serviceable engines is no longer grounded.
“The number of GoFirst’s grounded aircraft (Aircraft on Ground or AOGs) averaged 30.5 percent in 2020, 25.6 percent in 2021, and 33.9 percent in 2022. From January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2023, there were 17,244 AOG days (the cumulative number of days during which grounded aircraft could not safely fly) across the fleet of First Batch Aircraft,” the airline said in the filing.
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