Snags soar in Dreamliner but Air India gets 10th aircraft

New Delhi: Notwithstanding a string of glitches the state-of-the-art aircraft has faced in the recent past, the tenth Dreamliner of Air India flew in to New Delhi from the Boeing headquarters in Seattle today, with Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh on board.

The latest Boeing 787, carrying call-sign VT-ANG, landed at the IGI Airport at 1350 hours and was received by Air India CMD Rohit Nandan and Prabhat Kumar, joint secretary in the civil aviation ministry.

Singh was in the US, leading a team of his ministry officials, to attend the India-US Aviation Summit. He had a series of meetings with aviation officials, apart from visiting the Boeing headquarters and manufacturing facilities.

The tenth Dreamliner arrived days after one of them suffered cracks in its windowpanes when it landed at Melbourne while another had a false alarm shown on its cockpit panel about a problem in the brake system as it landed under emergency conditions in New Delhi. Last month, a panel had fallen off the aircraft's belly in Bangalore.

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Air India spokesperson GP Rao said all problems regarding the aircraft, including minor incidents, were being reported to the aircraft manufacturer. A Boeing team was working with the airline's engineering and maintenance team.

In the same vein, Boeing's Communications and Marketing Manager Wilson Chow said, "Boeing is aware of the in service issue and we re working with Air India on the matter."

Air India, which has been experiencing trouble with its newly-acquired Boeing 787s almost since it began inducting them late last year, wants to use the new-generation aircraft fleet as the mainstay for rapid expansion of its global network.

With this aircraft, Air India now has ten Boeing 787s out of a total of 27 for which it has placed orders.

The airline, which has connected cities like Birmigham, Melbourne and Sydney, plans to have have air links with Rome, Milan and Moscow during this winter season. The planes were also flying on domestic routes like Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Bangalore and Delhi-Kolkata.

PTI