The Indian government removed the limitation from Airbus A320neo powered by the Pratt & Whitney (P&W) family of aircraft to fly longer overseas routes. Until now, these particular aircraft were allowed to operate in routes where the diversion airport was no more than 60 minutes away at any point of the flight routing. In India, only two airlines use this particular aircraft which are IndiGo, Vistara, and GoAir. Fun fact, IndiGo is also the biggest customer of Airbus for the A320/21neos. Keep reading ahead to find out more about the story.
DGCA Extends the EDTO Time For P&W Powered Airbus A320neo Aircraft
For the unaware, EDTO stands for ‘extended diversion time operations’. As per a report from TOI, The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has increased the EDTO time for Airbus A320neo aircraft from 60 minutes to 90 minutes. Since P&W powered aircraft have not displayed any sort of problem in any part of the world, the DGCA feels like this is the right time for taking this call.
The regulator is also thinking about removing the two-year-old ban it imposed on airlines (IndiGo and Vistara) to operate these particular aircraft from flying to Port Blair. If during a flight one of the engine powers down, the other engine of the twin-engined aircraft can allow safe landing at the nearest airport.
Until now, the maximum allowed time to do an emergency landing for P&W powered A320neo aircraft was 60 minutes. But Pratt & Whitney really came around when it introduced a modified engine which was more efficient as well as fixed all the faults which were causing the snags.
Now the Indian airlines can finally operate their more fuel-efficient aircraft on certain overseas routes which it couldn’t do so currently. IndiGo wanted the EDTO to be extended so that it could manage its overseas operations in a better way. Against IndiGo’s requests, the regulator asked it to operate a validation flight on a particular route fit for testing and share the results of the same.
The DGCA liked the results which came from the test and thus increased the EDTO time for Airbus A320neo family of aircraft powered by the P&W engines from 60 minutes to 90 minutes.
