On the back of the India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) cracking their whip on budget carriers IndiGo and GoAir, which were using the A320neo planes powered by faulty Pratt & Whitney engines, both the airlines have decided to cancel more than 600 flights this month. As per reports, IndiGo would be cancelling more than 488 flights during the March 15-31 period, whereas, GoAir will cancel a total of 138 flights between March 15-22.

Reports state, going by the passenger load factor recorded for both these airlines in January (90%), the cancellation is expected to hit an estimated one lakh passengers. It is expected that impact will be more severe in the coming month, when airline summer schedule begins. Both the airlines together operate about 1200 flights daily and fly close to 50 percent domestic passengers in the country.

As per other reports, from the March 15 to 21 period, IndiGo won’t operate 36 daily flights and 18 daily flights would remain cancelled between March 22 and March 24. The number of flights cancelled between March 25 and March 31 stands at 16 per day, the airline indicated, taking the total number of cancelled flights to 488 till the end of this month. Both IndiGo and GoAir airlines have said that choice of alternative flights and full refund would be offered for the passengers of the cancelled flights. Apart from this, IndiGo has moved the flight timings of many flights an hour ahead or two hours behind schedule.

The incident came to light, after a Lucknow-bound IndiGo flight returned 40 minutes after departing from Ahmedabad airport due to single engine failure. The flight was equipped with a pair of P&W engines, one out of which stopped functioning. This was reportedly, the third such incident in the past one week. Citing the threat posed to passenger safety, the flight regulator DGCA ordered IndiGo and GoAir to ground all its flights powered with Pratt & Whitney engines.

Click here to check the list of cancelled flights from   March 15 to March 31, 2018: 

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 16, 2018 03:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).