Armenia flag carrier Armavia took delivery of its first new A319 yesterday. The aircraft was handed over to Armavia’s President, Mikhail Bagdasarov, at a ceremony held at the Airbus factory in Hamburg, Germany. Operated under a lease agreement with ILFC, the new A319 will increase the airline’s Airbus fleet to five aircraft from the current four, two A319s and two A320s.

Armavia’s A319 features the all-new cabin that recently entered service on all members of the Airbus A320 family of aircraft. The new cabin increases passenger comfort in a brighter and more modern cabin environment. The aircraft is powered by CFM International's CFM56 engines, and is fitted with 134 passengers in a two-class cabin layout.

The airline plans to operate this aircraft on its international routes, such as to Moscow, Paris, Amsterdam, Saint Petersburg, Zurich, Berlin, Athens, Kiev, Odessa, Simferopol and Dubai.

The last few days may have brought bad news to both Boeing and Airbus in the form of order cancellations, which have put both manufacturers in an unenviable situation of being negative on their net order book for 2009.

They can take heart in the procurement actions of India's national carrier Air India, which will be taking delivery of ordered aircraft.. By September end, Air India, would add 13 aircraft to its existing 154.

On Friday the low cost subsidiary Air India Express inducted another Boeing 737-800 aircraft increasing its fleet size to 21 aircraft. The new aircraft inducted has ‘shikara on the Dal Lake in Kashmir’ on one side of the tail and an ‘image of a large expanse of the Rajasthan Desert’ on the other side. The tail designs are an innovative and novel feature of the Air India Express fleet. Each of the aircraft showcases the picturesque landscapes, monuments, birds, animals, handicraft and dances of India on both sides of the tail.

The airline will launch it’s once a week flight Srinagar to Dubai from February 14, 2009. The airline is expected to increase frequency on the Chennai-Trichy-Dubai route from three flights a week to seven flights a week, on the Chennai-Hyderabad-Dubai route from three to four flights a week, and on the Trichy-Kuala Lumpur sector from three to six flights a week.

On Monday, Air India will take delivery of three Airbus A321-200s which will be deployed on domestic routes in India.

This will be followed by three Airbus A319-100s in March.


The national carrier will also add three B777-200LRs and four B777-300ERs to its fleet between June and September, to be used for international operations.


Air India has the largest number of fixed assets in the Indian aviation industry. It has placed orders for 111 new aircraft, estimated at Rs 40,000 crore ($8.3 billion), and these will be delivered in three years. The airline is expected to post losses of Rs 3,000 crore ($625 million) in the current fiscal, but expects an equity infusion of Rs. 2,000 crore ($417 million) by the Government of India, by March.

Both the European EASA and US FAA have issued emergency Airworthiness Directives ADs for operators of CFM56-5B engines, typically operated on the Airbus A320 family of aircraft, which include the A318, A319, A320 and A321.

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EASA Emergency Airworthiness Directive 2008-228 and the FAA Airworthiness Directive AD 2009-01-01, requests operators of CFM56-5B engines, to monitor Exhaust Gas Temperatures (EGT) for deterioration. If both engines show deteriorations of 80 or more degrees, at least one engine must be replaced according to the new directive. EGT monitoring is a crucial aspect of flight operations.

The emergency directives come after an incident, in which an Airbus A321-200 experienced compressor stalls on both engines during initial climb out on December 15th 2008. While not disclosed, it is suspected, this is the incident involving Air France Airbus A321-200, F-GTAJ, flight AF 2585 from Tunis to Paris CDG, where the flight had to return to Tunis 14 minutes after take-off due to "unspecified engine problems".

The CFM56-5B is a very popular engine with over 60% of Airbus A320 family operators, selecting them.

In India, Indian (now Air India) operates the CFM engine on the new series of Airbus aircraft, part of the 43 ordered by them in 2006. Indian had ordered 20 Airbus A321s, 19 Airbus A319s and four A320s. The older series of Indian's A320 fleet use engines from IAE, as do most of India's private operators, Kingfisher Airlines, Kingfisher Red, and IndiGo, which are not impacted by these ADs.

I must stress that there is no need for passengers to treat these ADs as negative, and Air India has an excellent maintenance record.