NEW DELHI: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s
aircraft
has finally been repaired and cleared to fly. The PM and his entourage will leave Delhi this afternoon. “The technical issue with the plane has been resolved. The plane has been cleared to fly. The
Canadian delegation
is expected to depart this (Tuesday) afternoon,”
Canadian PMO
told TOI.
Since the snag in this 36-year-old Airbus A310 at Delhi Airport has been rectified, the enroute alternate aircraft sent by Canada was diverted to London. Till yesterday Canada had described the situation of the PM’s return as “fluid” as it has an ageing VVIP fleet that has been known to develop snags in the past too.
The over 30-year-old aircraft supposed to fly Justin Trudeau and his delegation back home on Sunday night had developed a snag just before departure.
The wide body Airbus A310 had flown Trudeau to Delhi from Singapore on September 8 and was to leave for Ottawa via Rome on Sunday when a glitch as detected. Incidentally in the summer of 2018, the aircraft had developed a snag when Trudeau was to leave for Delhi. The flight was delayed that time too. There have been other instances too of this ageing aircraft suffering issues. The Canadian government is in the process of replacing the old VVIP aircraft.
This is not the only case of a VVIP flight getting delayed in recent times due to snags on old planes. Last month, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had to cancel her trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji after her 23-year-old Airbus A340 yet again suffered a snag during refuelling in Abu Dhabi. Germany is also retiring its old VVIP fleet.
Indian dignitaries recently got two state-of-the-art Boeing 777s that replaced the over three-decade old jumbo jets of Air India which use to fly the president, PM and VPs for lingual international journeys.
