Earlier this week, a ground incident at Delhi Airport saw an Air India A350 aircraft suffer damage to its number two engine (right side engine) when a stray cargo container got ingested into the engine while the aircraft was taxiing in low visibility. While no passengers or crew members were hurt, the aircraft’s engine suffered substantial damage, resulting in the aircraft being grounded.

The Indian civil aviation authority is investigating this incident. In the meantime, Air India has indicated that the grounding of one of its six A350s will result in disruptions to the type’s operations and could result in last-minute equipment swaps on the airline’s long-haul network.

Serious Damage To Engine Number Two

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The incident occurred on Thursday morning (January 15), when an Air India service from Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) to New York JFK Airport, being operated by one of the airline’s six Airbus A350-900 aircraft, had to turn around and return to DEL due to the temporary airspace closure over Iran. The aircraft safely landed back at DEL just after 5 AM local time, and the reports from the BBC indicate that the visibility on the ground was marginal due to dense fog and unfavourable weather conditions at the time.

The cargo container was ingested by the aircraft engine as it was taxiing from the runway to its allocated parking stand. The incident occurred around 05:25 AM, and the reports indicate that the cargo container, which was ingested into the engine, had fallen off a ground vehicle and onto a taxiway intersection. As per a post by the Indian DGCA on X, the incident left the engine severely damaged, and the area surrounding the location of the incident had to be inspected to clear metal pieces and other FOD (Foreign Object Debris) from this incident.

As per the DGCA preliminary inspection, the stray cargo container had fallen from one of the cargo transport tugs earlier, as it was crossing this intersection of taxiways, on its way to the Baggage Makeup Area. Simple Flying has reached out to the airline regarding this incident. Any response will be updated in this article.

Potential Equipment Swaps On A350 Routes?

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The damaged aircraft has been grounded, leaving Air India with only five of its six A350s currently operational. A key issue with having a very small subfleet of a particular aircraft type, especially when it is being utilized for long-haul services, is that if one of the aircraft is grounded for any reason, the airline is then left with having to find a suitable replacement aircraft capable of operating such missions, while also providing sufficient capacity.

In the case of Air India, the airline utilized the A350s on the following routes:

While the above five services across these four routes are always operated by the A350, the airline also occasionally deploys the type on some of its domestic routes, which are otherwise usually served by other widebody aircraft types within the Air India fleet. These domestic destinations include airports such as Chennai (MAA), Hyderabad (HYD), Mumbai (BOM), and more.

Therefore, having one of its six A350s could potentially result in last-minute equipment swaps on any of these routes, depending on the operational requirements and the scheduling of the remaining five aircraft within the subfleet.

More About Air India’s A350-900s

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The airline’s A350s have a three-class configuration, with the data from aeroLopa indicating a capacity to accommodate a total of 316 passengers. While the airline currently operates six A350s, the subfleet for the type will continue growing as the airline is yet to receive 44 more A350s, which will enable Air India to deploy the type on more routes across its network.

The airline had initially placed an order for 40 of these Airbus widebody aircraft as part of the larger order with Airbus and Boeing for 470 jets that Air India had placed in 2023. This was then further topped up with an order for a further 100 Airbus aircraft in 2024, which saw the airline add a further 10 A350s to its orderbook, bringing the total number for the type to 50. The initial order for the 40 examples of the type includes 20 of the smaller -900 variants, of which six have been delivered, and 20 of the larger Airbus A350-1000s. However, it has not been specified if the further 10 examples of the type which the airline ordered in 2024, will be of the -900 or the -1000 variant, or a mix.

With hundreds of jets on order, the airline is expanding its fleet significantly, which will also indicate a significant network expansion, with the airline already announcing new long-haul route launches.