DGCA to ground IndiGo’s A320neos with engine problems unless they’re fixed by 31 Jan

There were 4 incidents involving IndiGo jets with Pratt & Whitney engines in the past week, which has caused ‘serious concern’, DGCA said.

An Airbus Group SE A320neo passenger jet operated by IndiGo | Balint Porneczi | Bloomberg

New Delhi: India ordered IndiGo, the world’s biggest operator of Airbus SE A320neo jets, to fix all Pratt & Whitney engines that power those planes by Jan. 31 or they’ll be grounded. IndiGo shares fell.

There were an unprecedented four incidents involving IndiGo-operated jets with Pratt engines in the past week, which has caused “serious concern,” India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said in a statement.

“Four successive events have not happened ever before,” it said. “We regret the inconvenience but we need desperate measures to put things in order.”

The move is a setback for Pratt, a unit of United Technologies Corp., which has suffered delivery delays and groundings in India. The scrutiny also hampers IndiGo’s expansion plans as the airline adds more than a plane a week to its fleet after ordering hundreds of the Airbus jets.

Shares of InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., which operates IndiGo, erased gains of as much as 3.5% to fall as much as 1.7% Friday in Mumbai. They were trading 0.3% down at 1,451.90 rupees as of 2:43 p.m. local time.

A representative for Pratt in India didn’t have an immediate comment, while an IndiGo spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. An Airbus spokesman said the planemaker is supporting the airline together with the engine maker.

The DGCA order doesn’t apply to Go Airlines India, the other operator that flies with the same engine in the country, based on “their safety record,” Arun Kumar, the chief of the safety agency, said in a separate text message. The order on Friday follows a directive earlier this week, when India said close to 30 Airbus SE A320neo jets operated by the two Indian airlines will be grounded if they don’t update some Pratt engines within 15 days.

IndiGo decided in June to switch away from the UTC unit, ordering $20 billion of rival engines from the CFM venture of General Electric Co. and France’s Safran SA.

As of August, there were 15 incidents involving Indian carriers experiencing in-flight shutdowns, planes having to turn back or takeoffs being rejected over three years because of the engine. IndiGo must fix that problem “at all costs,” the regulator said. -Bloomberg