Boeing to replace AI Dreamliner windshields

After a series of incidents of cracks in windshields in Air India’s Dreamliners, manufacturer Boeing has said that it is developing a new design with improved features.

Boeing has also promised to replace the old windshields, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Monday. Four cases were reported between November 3, 2013 and June 17, 2014.

“Ongoing investigations by Boeing indicates that moisture ingress has resulted in an increased rate of occurrence of cracking on non-structural outer glass ply, which does not affect the safety of the aircraft due to windshield’s multiple-layer construction,” Raju said.
The first case was reported on November 3 in a Delhi-Melbourne flight after landing there, while the second incident took place on a Mumbai-Delhi flight on December 14.

The other incidents took place on Frankfurt-Delhi flight on May 9 and the fourth on Delhi-Kolkata flight on June 17.

Raju also said that till June, out of 9,902 take offs involving Dreamliners, 318 instances of service delays attributed to technical snags have been reported.

Raju also said all new aircraft models like Dreamliners, when inducted initially, “face teething troubles” and regular improvements are incorporated as a part of reliability enhancement programme.

To another question, Minister of State for Civil Aviation G M Siddeshwara said the operator of Kempegowda International Airport, Bangalore, has plans to construct a second runway and a new Terminal-2 in line with the traffic projections. Siddeshwara, however, did not give a timeline on when the new runway and terminal would be operational.

“The expenditure and timeline of the project would depend on various factors such as appointment of technical consultants, preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR), stakeholders consultation in line with the guidelines of Airports Economic Regulatory Authority and approval of various authorities,” the minister said.