France-based aircraft manufacturer Airbus has said that it has finally restored engine balance in the A320neo deliveries on order by Indian carriers like Indigo and GoAir.
Earlier this year, these aircraft were affected by troubles in the Pratt & Whitney engines that powered some of them.
In May, the aircraft manufacturer delivered 22 A320neos – equally fitted with Pratt & Whitney and CFM engines. While Indigo and GoAir had opted for the former, Air India and Vistara chose the latter. “Initially, time went in making available engines to the grounded aircraft in India and providing engines to new deliveries was held up. We are now back on track,” said Justin Dubon, head, global news communications.
Airbus said it had successfully restored ‘power-plant’ parity to A320neo-family deliveries, handing over 22 aircraft in total during May, an official overlooking the deliveries said. As Pratt & Whitney encountered issues with the PW1100G engine and retrofitting started, it affected new deliveries. “We have a few aircraft ready for delivery to Indigo and GoAir along with Air India,” officials said.
New engines
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had, in March this year, grounded 11 A320neos operated by Indigo (8) and GoAir (3) citing safety reasons. The aircraft were later fitted with new engines and are now flying.
For Airbus, deliveries in May involved 41 aircraft from the A320 family (including the 22 in the neo configuration), along with seven A350-900s and three A330-200s/A330-300s. With May’s orders and deliveries taken into account, net orders logged by Airbus during the first five months of 2018 totalled 111 jetliners. As of May 31, Airbus’s overall backlog of jetliners remaining to be delivered stood at 7,153 aircraft, representing approximately nine years of production at current rates.
The A320neo, despite past issues, is 15 % more fuel efficient than today’s comparable models. It also shows better figures in terms of noise reduction. The 85-decibel maximum noise-level contour of a starting A320neo is about 50% lower than that of the current A320s, the company said.
“In accordance with certification standards, the cumulative noise emissions are about 29.8 dB below the applicable ICAO limits, which represents a significant advance in terms of noise and emissions reduction compared to the current fleet of A320. This is also why airlines are willing to wait it out,” officials said.
In addition to the new engine technology, the A320neo and A321neo aircraft are also equipped with vortex generators on delivery, which have an additional noise- reducing effect. The wings are fitted with the recently newly-developed wing tips, which with its 2.4 meter long winglets (sharklets) lead to less fuel consumption due to the resulting aerodynamic advantages.
(The writer was in Toulouse at the invitation of Cathay Pacific)
