All you need to know about the A 320 Neos, Pratt and Whitney and other related things

This report appeared in The Children’s Post of India on 23rd March 2018

The featured image is of an Airbus A 320 Neo. The neo first took flight on 25th September 2014.

Airbus is the company that makes these planes. These airplanes use an engine that is made by another company – Pratt and Whitney.

Indigo Airlines of India has had 69 engine failure incidents in 18 months – an average of one incident a week. This is an exceptionally high number, but they are not the only ones having this problem.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has stopped the flying of all A 320 airplanes with this engine.

It is estimated that 40% of all planes with this faulty engine are in India. Indigo Airlines has the highest number of such planes – about 11 planes were grounded in February and 2 more have been grounded in March.

3 planes of Go Air were also grounded in February. This disrupts their operations in a big way.

Engine failure is a very serious thing. It can lead to a crash of the aircraft and can lead to serious damage and injury. Most airplanes are fitted with more than one engine, so that even if one fails, the other engine can take passengers to safety. However, with the A320 Neo, the European Airlines have experienced failure in both engines. Recently, other issues with the engines have also been found, unfortunately, during the flight.

The main advantage of these engines was the lower fuel consumption compared to the old model. However, because of the safety issues, the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation – the highest body to ensure flight safety in India) ordered the planes to fly at low altitude. This meant higher fuel consumption.

This is not just a failure of the engines. This has economic impact on our airline companies too. So far, it is not clear how this money loss will be compensated, if at all, by the faulty companies. Their track record of taking responsibility for their failures is very bad. In October 2017, Pratt and Whitney had even issued a statement saying that the engine failure is because of the Indian weather!