Mumbai: Domestic carrier IndiGo continued to operate with a curtailed schedule for the third day, cancelling 42 flights on Wednesday, after eight of its A320 Neo planes fitted with a certain series of Pratt & Whitney engines were grounded by the aviation regulator over safety concerns.

The cancelled flights include those to Mumbai, Calcutta, Pune, Jaipur, Srinagar, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Dehradun, Amritsar, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, the airline said on its website.

IndiGo operates about 1,000 flights daily.

The number of flights cancelled by GoAir, which had to ground three aircraft for the same the reason, was not immediately known.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had on Monday grounded the 11 aircraft, citing mid-air shutdown of engines.

Thousands of passengers are hit by the cancellations. But both airlines had said on Tuesday that they were taking measures to minimise inconvenience to the affected passengers. The passengers are being offered accommodation on alternative flights or the option of cancelling with full refund or rescheduling their travel without paying anything extra.

The regulator cracked the whip after an IndiGo flight bound for Lucknow returned to Ahmedabad within 40 minutes of getting airborne because of a mid-air engine failure. The DGCA said in its March order that A320 Neos fitted with PW1100 engines beyond ESN 450 should be grounded with immediate effect. 3 IndiGo A320Neos have been grounded since February for the same reason. PTI