IndiGo, India’s top airline with the most planes and the largest slice of the market, is now facing a challenge. They’ve come up with an estimate of how many planes they’ll need to take out of service because of an issue with the material used in their Pratt & Whitney engines. This problem is set to ground roughly 30-something aircraft, on top of the nearly 50 that were already sidelined for different reasons. So, when you add it all up, IndiGo might have to keep over 80 planes out of the skies during the first few months of 2024.

When it comes to the number of planes taking a break from the skies, it’s like the airline is throwing a giant “staycation” party, with as many planes relaxing on the tarmac as you’d find in both Air India Express and Akasa Air’s fleets combined. Right now, if you peek at the parking lot, you’ll spot 57 planes from Air India Express (including the old AirAsia India gang) and 20 from Akasa Air. That’s quite a crowd of grounded planes!

Ever since it joined the aviation scene in March 2016, the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine has been a source of concern for IndiGo, just like many other airlines worldwide. From the get-go, there were delays in its introduction, and this brought along in-flight engine shutdowns and warning signs that often forced the planes to take unplanned detours. The situation had become so frequent that the aviation authorities had to step in to address it.

what steps IndiGo is taking to address this challenge?

The airline is still planning to stick to its earlier predictions for how many flights it will operate in the current quarter (Q3) and for the entire year 2024. They anticipate that their growth will be somewhere between “a little more than 10% and a little less than 20%.” Recently, the airline has been giving more general estimates with ranges like “upper,” “lower,” and “mid” instead of precise numbers when talking about how much they will grow and how many planes they might have to ground.

The good news in this whole situation is that it’s not a shock. The airline is getting 11 A320 planes through a wet-lease arrangement and making deals for 20 A320ceo planes on a dry lease. This will help increase their capacity and make up for the planes that will be leaving their fleet.

How many planes from Pratt & Whitney engines are flying in IndiGo’s fleet?

IndiGo is like a big airline with more than 330 planes. Out of these, 112 are A320neos, and 25 are A321neos, which adds up to a total of 137 planes. What’s interesting is that these 137 planes are made by Pratt & Whitney, which is like the heart of the aircraft. They make up about 41% of all of IndiGo’s planes.

Now, imagine a situation where some of these planes can’t fly, maybe because they need maintenance or repairs. When that situation is at its worst, there could be around 85 to 90 of these Pratt & Whitney-powered planes sitting on the ground, unable to take off. This would mean that almost 60% of the Pratt & Whitney planes in IndiGo’s fleet can’t be used.

Here’s the twist: IndiGo got their last Pratt & Whitney-powered plane in 2020, and from now on, all the new planes they get will have engines made by CFM. These CFM engines will be used on both the A320neo and A321neo aircraft. So, the Pratt & Whitney era for IndiGo is slowly coming to an end, with a new type of engine taking over.