Pratt & Whitney engine issue: IndiGo to ground over 30 aircraft

Domestic air carrier IndiGo will be grounding atleast 30 to 35 aircraft by the January to March quarter of FY24 due to the impact of the powder metal issue on the airline's Pratt & Whitney powered fleet, the company says in a statement.

"Earlier this year, Pratt & Whitney highlighted the impact of the powder metal issue that has affected its new generation GTF aircraft engine. Globally, we understand that a large number of incremental engines ranging between 600-700 are being removed for accelerated inspections and shop visits between 2023 and 2026 and two-thirds of these engine removals are planned for 2023 and early 2024," says the company.

"We have recently received additional information on the powder metal issue from Pratt & Whitney and based on our preliminary assessment of this, we anticipate Aircraft on Ground (AOG) in the range of mid[1]thirties in the fourth quarter (Jan-Mar2024) due to accelerated engine removals. These groundings will be incremental to the current AOGs," it adds.

IndiGo has a fleet of more than 334 aircraft. The company has also confirmed the capacity for FY24 "in the North-mid teens." The airline says that it remains confident in meeting its long-term capacity guidance.

"Based on this recent information as received, we can reconfirm our given capacity guidance for Q3 (Oct to Dec 23). In addition, we also confirm our earlier capacity guidance for the entire FY23-24 “in the North of mid-teens” significantly aided by proactive mitigation measures taken earlier by IndiGo. Going forward, we continue to work with Pratt & Whitney on more information and addressing the situation and implementing mitigation measures to minimize the impact of these AOGs on our capacity in Q4 FY23-24 and beyond," the airline says.

In the July to September quarter, the company reported a net profit of ₹188.9 crore for the July-September quarter of 2023-24 as compared to a net loss of ₹1,583.3 crore in the same quarter during the previous year. The company’s total revenue for the quarter ended September 2023 stood at ₹15,502.9 crore, an increase of 20.6% over the same period last year. Its passenger ticket revenue was ₹13,069 crore, an increase of 17.6% and ancillary revenue surged 20.05% to ₹1,551 crore. 

Gurgaon-based aviation company saw its capacity increase by 27.7% in the said quarter, while the number of travellers surged 33.4% to 26.3 million."We continued to augment our network both domestically and internationally as we added 10 new destinations in the past few months, taking the total number of destinations to 115 as of today,” IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers had said.

At 12:19 pm, the share price of the airline was trading 0.27% higher at ₹2,592.20.