Nagpur: It has been more than a five-year wait for a Boeing-777 aircraft to take off after it landed at Nagpur for a mandatory overhaul in February 2020. If ripoffs are a common practice at your neighbourhood car workshop, this was exactly what was done with the Boeing at the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) depot at Nagpur. A spare was taken off from this aircraft to fit into another plane, hoping it would be replaced with a new one soon. And gradually it was stripped of more spares and the aircraft lay grounded at AIESL’s (Air India Engineering Services Ltd) MRO depot at Mihan-SEZ here.
It all began with a quickfix idea for another Boeing-777, which landed at the same time for a phase check that has a shorter turnaround. MRO engineers took out a spare from the first Boeing, which has a call sign of VT-ALL into the other plane, said sources. And then the Boeing became a strip store for spare parts. It takes around 30 days for an MRO to complete the C check mandated for the Boeing, but here it has been stuck for half a decade.
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It was hoped the fresh spare would be arranged soon, but calculations misfired. The plane cannot fly back until an airworthiness release certificate (ARC) is issued. The delay, which was expected not to go beyond days, continued for months and then years. Aircraft after aircraft flew away with some spare or other taken off from VT-ALL, a source said.This certainly exposes problems in inventory management. It’s not normal to pluck out a crucial spare from one aircraft and use it in another, a source said. Earlier, AIESL was part of Air India, which the Tata Group took over in 2022. Cannibalising the aircraft did not matter so far, as both AIESL and Air India were part of the same group. The overhaul gained speed after Tata Group took over. However, the rollout dates were extended at least 3 times. Earlier, it was supposed to fly in November, but it was extended till December, and then January. The work continues at the fuel tank, said sources. The AIESL management did not respond to TOI’s query. Later, an official requesting anonymity passed the buck to Air India.
