As of July 21, Air India had welcomed its 16th Boeing Dreamliner into the family. Yet already this year close to 150 Air India Dreamliner flights have been grounded, according to a news report. That’s almost nine groundings per Dreamliner this year.
The problems seem unending. Two Air India Dreamliners hit by snags in a day, Air India Dreamliner flight from Melbourne makes emergency landing due to 'glitches' and Air India Dreamliner windshield develops cracks. If nationalised airlines are an attempt to present the best of a country's engineering, efficiency and aesthetics, Air India does not show India in a good light.
The Boeing Dreamliner planes were introduced on Air India in September 2012 and the combination has been beset by problems since. The plane was met with a lot of fanfare as it is light weight and therefore consumes less fuel. Better fuel efficiency implies lower flying costs for the airline. At least Air India can claim it has never had a battery problem. During the three-month global grounding starting in January of last year, Air India flew three of its planes, albeit without passengers, without a hitch.
The issue is exacerbated because it is not simply one kind of trouble that Air India is having with its Dreamliner aircrafts. It’s all different types. A flight from Melbourne to Delhi was diverted to Kuala Lumpur after all three of the jet’s navigation computers failed simultaneously. Two other planes had cracked windshields within a month of deployment – windshield cracks typically occur in planes that are more than 4-5 years old.
26/07/14 Scroll.in
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The problems seem unending. Two Air India Dreamliners hit by snags in a day, Air India Dreamliner flight from Melbourne makes emergency landing due to 'glitches' and Air India Dreamliner windshield develops cracks. If nationalised airlines are an attempt to present the best of a country's engineering, efficiency and aesthetics, Air India does not show India in a good light.
The Boeing Dreamliner planes were introduced on Air India in September 2012 and the combination has been beset by problems since. The plane was met with a lot of fanfare as it is light weight and therefore consumes less fuel. Better fuel efficiency implies lower flying costs for the airline. At least Air India can claim it has never had a battery problem. During the three-month global grounding starting in January of last year, Air India flew three of its planes, albeit without passengers, without a hitch.
The issue is exacerbated because it is not simply one kind of trouble that Air India is having with its Dreamliner aircrafts. It’s all different types. A flight from Melbourne to Delhi was diverted to Kuala Lumpur after all three of the jet’s navigation computers failed simultaneously. Two other planes had cracked windshields within a month of deployment – windshield cracks typically occur in planes that are more than 4-5 years old.
26/07/14 Scroll.in
