India Flights Plagued With Technical Problems
Jennifer Billock March 21, 2018
Technical issues appear to plaguing flights from multiple airlines in India – including IndiGo, Air India, Jet Airways, and SpiceJet – causing delays and rerouted planes, which in some cases had to return to the original airport after already taking off.
Travelers flying in and out of India over the past few days have probably had a headache, with multiple airlines reporting various technical problems that disrupted flights.
The problem started with budget airline IndiGo, which has come under fire recently for frequent issues related to faulty engines on its Airbus A320neo planes. But in the last two days, three other airlines – Air India, Jet Airways, and SpiceJet – have been plagued with issues.
Jet Airways seems to be having the worst time of it. On Saturday, one of a plane’s wheels was found damaged and the plane was grounded until it was fixed. Two more Jet Airways flights had to return to the originating airport, with one of them reporting vibrations in an engine.
“On arrival of Jet Airways flight 9W 418 Mumbai- Jaipur, on March 17, and during a routine inspection, necessitated a grounding due a technical requirement,” the airline said in a statement reported by Bloomberg. “The return flight 9W 417 Jaipur-Mumbai operated with a revised departure on the following day due to Jaipur airfield closure and the arrival of a fresh crew set.” About the other flight, it said, “in the interest of safety, our flight 9W 552 operating from Mumbai to Doha, returned to the bay due to technical reasons.”
SpiceJet had some similar issues with an engine vibration, but also experienced a technical problem in the air conditioning system on one flight, and another was discovered to have a damaged wheel and brake after the flight landed.
SpiceJet denied there was an issue.
“There was no damage of any kind to either the aircraft, engine, wheel or brake of the aircraft,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg. “There was a small issue with the wheel, which was replaced and the aircraft returned back to operation for its next rotation.”
[Photo: Shutterstock]
