Technical Snags Faced by Dozen Scheduled Flights Every Day Has Affected Civil Aviation Industry’s Reputation
Earlier this month, Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha that a total of 24,791 defects/ snags were reported by various airlines in 2017.
The Civil Aviation Industry in the country is going through a tough time and owing to the technical glitches faced by dozen scheduled flights each day, the reputation of the body has been scarred. As per a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) report of March 23 accessed by ANI, Jet airways faced four technical snags, one of them was damaged brakes, while Spice Jet encountered three serious technical glitches. Other airlines like Air Asia faced two glitches and Go Air faced one glitch. Meanwhile, three Air India flights were delayed due to technical issues that were not listed in the report.
Reportedly, Jet Airways accepted that their aircraft detected glitches, while SpiceJet highlighted that, there was no defect to the aircraft, which operated its scheduled flight without any delay. Around 10 days back, on the back of the grounding of 11 Airbus 320 neo aircraft, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha that a total of 24,791 defects/ snags were reported by various airlines in 2017. The PTI report highlighted that, Jet Airways reported 9,689 snags, SpiceJet: 4,903 snags, Air India: 4,563 snags, Go Air: 1,888 snags, Air Asia: 1,367 snags, Vistara: 1,225 snags, Blue Dart: 793 snags and IndiGo: 340 snags.
The incident was brought 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. IndiGo cancelled a total of 488 till the end of this month, whereas GoAir cancelled 138 flights between March 15-22 period.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 26, 2018 04:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).