India may ground Dreamliners if Boeing fails to fix glitches
04 Mar 2014
India has asked Boeing Co to find a solution for the frequent glitches in its 787 Dreamliners operated by state-owned Air India, and civil aviation minster Ajit Singh said on Monday that any decision on the fleet will depend on the plane maker's response.
''There are a lot of glitches which are happening every now and then,'' Ajit Singh told reporters in New Delhi. ''Everything depends on what kind of response we get,'' he said, when asked if grounding the fleet was an option.
The aircraft has experienced a series of malfunctions since its debut in 2011, including a three-month grounding of the global fleet last year after battery meltdowns on two planes.
Air India, which hasn't reported an annual profit since 2007, experienced 136 snags with the plane as of 27 November, according to a Bloomberg report citing the aviation ministry.
Ashmita Sethi, a Boeing spokeswoman in India, didn't immediately respond.
Dinesh Keskar, a senior vice president at the Chicago-based plane maker, said on 11 February that Air India is dissatisfied with the performance of the Dreamliner.
