MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: With its latest acquisition – the Dreamliner – – facing technical trouble, Air India and the Civil Aviation Ministry would await the findings of the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) probe into the problems faced by Boeing 787s before taking any decision.
Following the recent trouble erupting in an aircraft owned by Japan Airlines, American manufacturer Boeing jointly announced investigations into the matter with the FAA.
The plane has had three technical mishaps this month, including an electrical fire in a Japan Airlines plane, a fuel leakage and a broken cockpit window.
“There is nothing to be done by us at present. We have already carried out inspections and checks on our aircraft on our own, including on the lithium ion batteries,” senior Air India officials said, adding “we are awaiting any advice from the FAA or Boeing.”
Experts say these batteries are used on the F-22 and F-35 fighters, the International Space Station, battery-powered cars like the Tesla and the Chevy Volt, apart from the high-tech new Dreamliner.
Regarding fuel leaks, the airline officials said this was not something “unusual as it occurs in all aircraft types.” Such problems have to be rectified but these are not anything significant, they said.
Boeing has designated a team in Delhi for any trouble-shooting, the officials said, adding that the team was “available to us at any time in the eventuality of the plane facing any technical problem.”
Stating that the “fuel efficient” plane has started turning the fortunes of the carrier on many loss-making sectors which were so far being serviced by B-777s, they said “we are banking on these aircraft going forward because of the fuel efficiency.”
Sectors like Delhi-Frankfurt, which were bleeding the airline, have now turned cash-positive with the deployment of these planes, the officials said. The aircraft is also being operated to Dubai and Paris.
With the introduction of these planes, Air India has put five of the Boeing 777-200 LRs up for sale and gradually replacing their routes with the Dreamliners.
The national carrier, which has already acquired six of these planes and would be inducting two more by March, had come across a glitch in the plane’s liquid cooling system and electrical power system on the first day of its operations, leading to the grounding of all three Dreamliner planes in Air India’s fleet at that time.
After the faults were rectified, these planes have been flying regularly on certain domestic and international routes.
Air India had placed orders for 27 of these aircraft even when it was on the drawing board, as part of the 68 aircraft purchase order with Boeing in 2006.
The B-787s, the latest and most technologically advanced offering from Boeing, is made of lightweight composite materials instead of aluminum.
The upcoming investigations by the FAA and Boeing is likely to delve into the problems in its electrical system, including whether it has sufficient safety monitoring equipment for its innovative lithium ion batteries.
The battery fire broke out on an empty Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines while it was parked at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
In a statement from its Everett plant in the US welcoming the joint probe with FAA, Boeing said it was confident in the design and performance of the B-787s. “The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily,” the company said in its statement. -PTI
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