ATR 42 500 the national airline resumed scheduled services, today.The 48seater aircraft had been grounded for six days after a leak in its hydraulic system was discovered seven days ago. This was the aircraft’s fifth grounding in its less than three months of service with Drukair.

Prior to the present technical problem, a ruptured deicing boot and damaged wheel bearings grounded the aircraft for a total of 19 days. With the present grounding, the aircraft will have been grounded for a day in September and 24 days in August alone. The length of grounding is mostly due to the time spare parts take to reach Paro and because a part of the aircraft had to be transported to Singapore for repair.

While exact cost of all repairs could not be provided by the airline yet, estimates put costs no less than USD 30,000.

In July, the aircraft was grounded for at least three days to prevent its pilots from exceeding permitted flying hours.

In June, the aircraft, despite arriving on June 4, did not fly scheduled services until June 22 as a result of civil aviation auditing of its documents.

Drukair CEO, Tandin Jamso, in a previous interview said that the recent spate of technical issues were unpredictable problems, that could be expected of an aircraft that was hardly used in its nine years of service with its previous owner.

He pointed out that the aircraft is subjected to daily technical checks given Paro airport’s harsh terrain. It also passed technical examinations by independent teams prior to leasing/purchasing the aircraft.

Drukair plans to use the ATR for its domestic operations. Just prior to the latest grounding, the aircraft had conducted a visual route survey to the country’s first two domestic airstrips, in Yonphula, Trashigang and Batpalathang, Bumthang.

The flight time to Batpalathang is 25 minutes and to Yonphula, 35minutes.