Air India grounds all Dreamliners after US decision

FAA issued a global directive to stop operations of all Dreamliners

Indian regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has directed Air India to ground all six Dreamliners following US aviation regulator FAA directing all US airlines to ground them.

Arun Mishra, DGCA told Business Standard, “ FAA provides air worthiness certificate to all Dreamliners as it is a US manufactured plane. Following FAA directive, we all grounded all the Dremliners at 3 in the morning.”

The four Dreamliners that are used for domestic operations have already been grounded and rest  two 787s are due to arrive from Paris and Frankfurt to Delhi around 9 and they will then be grounded, DGCA added.

Air India’s turnaround plan may go for a toss following the regulator's move. Already, the Dreamliner plane was delivered after a 4 year delay. Boeing had claimed it to be 20 per cent more fuel efficient and Air India intended to do away with route and type of plane mismatch by deploying these planes.

The grounding of the planes happens after two Japanese airlines-- ANA and JAL--grounded all 24 of their Dreamliner planes following a series of technical problems.

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