Air India yet to detect battery problems in Dreamliners
06:16PM Thu 17 Jan, 2013
[caption id="attachment_22293" align="aligncenter" width="380"] Was the DGCA being lax in not immediately asking Air India to ground planes or are the six aircraft that Air India has safe enough to fly still? AFP[/caption]
New Delhi: India’s aviation regulator DGCA was categoric until late yesterday evening in his assertion that there was no need to ground the Boeing 787 Dreamliners despite several airlines around the world giving up on the faulty planes.
Just yesterday, All Nippon Airways (ANA) grounded all Dreamliners in its fleet after an emergency landing due to problems with the aircraft’s battery system.
Only when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the US issued an airworthiness directive late last night did the DGCA order all six Air India Dreamliners to be grounded.
Was the DGCA being lax in not immediately asking Air India to ground planes or are the six aircraft that Air India has safe enough to fly still?
Sources within Air India have themselves acknowledged that myriad problems have been faced by the airline with the Dreamliners in the last few months.
These include an instance when the doors of a Dreamliner cargo flight would not close, once the air conditioning system did not function inside the aircraft and there have been problems of fuel leakage too.
But all these instances were seen as “routine” with airline officials saying such problems occur with many new aircraft but are corrected by the manufacturer as time goes by.
“Fuel leakage happened on Dreamliners but this is not uncommon. When the aircraft is being refuelled, sometimes the fuel overflows. It should not happen but does sometimes. There is nothing to worry about. But the battery problems which we heard in the case of ANA have not been seen in the case of aircraft we operate,” said these sources.
Seasoned aviation engineers expect that FAA will ask The Boeing Co for test bench of all batteries to see if they conform to its standards before certifying the aircraft for flying again.
DGCA Arun Mishra confirmed to Firstpost that the Dreamliners have been grounded, saying there was an issue with the lithium-ion batteries Boeing has used this time instead of the conventional nickel-cadmium batteries.
The sudden drama created by a 4 am DGCA order ensured that two Dreamliner flights of AI, which were on way from Paris and Frankfurt to New Delhi, were grounded on arrival.
Three other 787s were “sleeping” before their scheduled morning domestic flights whereas one has always been kept on standby.
Air India revival at stake?
So what does the sudden aircraft grounding mean for loss-laden Air India, which had pinned its hopes on returning to profitability by making intelligent use of the Dreamliners instead of fuel guzzling 777s?
A senior airline official said it was too premature to link the grounding of Dreamliners with a setback in the airline’s turnaround plan.
He also said Air India expected the aircraft to be grounded no more than for a week or two.
Dreamliners are the backbone of AI revival. Not only will flights to Paris and Frankfurt get affected due to the grounding, Air India’s plan to become the only Indian airline to launch direct flights to Australia this summer could also be hit.
As per an earlier plan, the airline was to receive two additional Dreamliners by March 31 and launch simultaneous flights to Sydney and Melbourne from April. Now, unless the Dreamliners are certified fit by the FAA, flights to Australia may have to wait.
The official quoted earlier said the airline will now try to maintain its flights to Europe by deploying the 777 on those routes where the Dreamliners were flying and rejigging some flights to the far East and Gulf regions.
FP
Was the DGCA being lax in not immediately asking Air India to ground planes or are the six aircraft that Air India has safe enough to fly still? AFP[/caption]
New Delhi: India’s aviation regulator DGCA was categoric until late yesterday evening in his assertion that there was no need to ground the Boeing 787 Dreamliners despite several airlines around the world giving up on the faulty planes.
Just yesterday, All Nippon Airways (ANA) grounded all Dreamliners in its fleet after an emergency landing due to problems with the aircraft’s battery system.
Only when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the US issued an airworthiness directive late last night did the DGCA order all six Air India Dreamliners to be grounded.
Was the DGCA being lax in not immediately asking Air India to ground planes or are the six aircraft that Air India has safe enough to fly still?
Sources within Air India have themselves acknowledged that myriad problems have been faced by the airline with the Dreamliners in the last few months.
These include an instance when the doors of a Dreamliner cargo flight would not close, once the air conditioning system did not function inside the aircraft and there have been problems of fuel leakage too.
But all these instances were seen as “routine” with airline officials saying such problems occur with many new aircraft but are corrected by the manufacturer as time goes by.
“Fuel leakage happened on Dreamliners but this is not uncommon. When the aircraft is being refuelled, sometimes the fuel overflows. It should not happen but does sometimes. There is nothing to worry about. But the battery problems which we heard in the case of ANA have not been seen in the case of aircraft we operate,” said these sources.
Seasoned aviation engineers expect that FAA will ask The Boeing Co for test bench of all batteries to see if they conform to its standards before certifying the aircraft for flying again.
DGCA Arun Mishra confirmed to Firstpost that the Dreamliners have been grounded, saying there was an issue with the lithium-ion batteries Boeing has used this time instead of the conventional nickel-cadmium batteries.
The sudden drama created by a 4 am DGCA order ensured that two Dreamliner flights of AI, which were on way from Paris and Frankfurt to New Delhi, were grounded on arrival.
Three other 787s were “sleeping” before their scheduled morning domestic flights whereas one has always been kept on standby.
Air India revival at stake?
So what does the sudden aircraft grounding mean for loss-laden Air India, which had pinned its hopes on returning to profitability by making intelligent use of the Dreamliners instead of fuel guzzling 777s?
A senior airline official said it was too premature to link the grounding of Dreamliners with a setback in the airline’s turnaround plan.
He also said Air India expected the aircraft to be grounded no more than for a week or two.
Dreamliners are the backbone of AI revival. Not only will flights to Paris and Frankfurt get affected due to the grounding, Air India’s plan to become the only Indian airline to launch direct flights to Australia this summer could also be hit.
As per an earlier plan, the airline was to receive two additional Dreamliners by March 31 and launch simultaneous flights to Sydney and Melbourne from April. Now, unless the Dreamliners are certified fit by the FAA, flights to Australia may have to wait.
The official quoted earlier said the airline will now try to maintain its flights to Europe by deploying the 777 on those routes where the Dreamliners were flying and rejigging some flights to the far East and Gulf regions.
FP
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