- The recall halts flights in Asia and Europe after U.S. travel was disrupted.
- Airbus recalls 6,000 A320 family aircraft for software update.
- The JetBlue incident revealed a vulnerability in flight control software.
Global airlines raced Saturday to fix a software glitch on Airbus A320 planes, as a partial recall by the European planemaker halted hundreds of flights in Asia and Europe and threatened U.S. travel during the busiest weekend of the year.
Airlines worked through the night after global regulators asked them to remedy the problem before resuming flights. Several carriers said Saturday they had completed or nearly completed repairs to their fleets, including American Airlines, United Airlines, Air India, Delta Air Lines and Hungary’s Wizz Air. Many reported no impact on operations.
Overnight efforts by airlines appeared to help avoid the worst-case scenario and limit the number of flight delays in Asia and Europe. In the United States, which will face high demand after the Thanksgiving holiday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said affected U.S. carriers “have reported great progress and are on track to meet this Sunday’s midnight deadline to complete the work.”
He said on X that travelers “SHOULD NOT expect major disruptions.”
Brendan Sobie, an aviation analyst based in Asia, said the update was “not as chaotic as some might think”, although “it creates some short-term headaches for operations”.
Airbus AIR.PA CEO Guillaume Faury apologized to airlines and passengers after the surprise recall of 6,000 planes, more than half the global A320 family fleet, which recently overtook the Boeing 737 as the industry’s most delivered model.
“I would like to sincerely apologize to airline customers and passengers who are currently affected,” Faury posted on LinkedIn.
Friday’s alert followed an unintentional loss of altitude on an Oct. 30 JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, that injured 10 passengers, according to the French accident agency BEA, which is investigating the incident.
Airbus recalls lucky timing for some airlines
The alert came at a time when many European and Asian airlines are cutting schedules, which generally do not require short-to-medium-haul planes like the A320 to fly at night, allowing time for repairs.
In the United States, however, it happened during the day, ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
American Airlines, the world’s largest A320 operator, said 209 of its 480 planes needed repairs, below initial estimates, with most expected to be completed by Saturday. United Airlines told Reuters on Saturday that all of its planes had been updated.
European budget airline Wizz Air said updates had been implemented overnight on all of its affected planes, and AirAsia, one of the world’s biggest A320 customers, said it aimed to finalize the fixes within 48 hours. India’s aviation regulator said on Saturday that carriers IndiGo and Air India are expected to complete the process on Saturday. ANA Holdings 9202.T canceled 95 flights on Saturday, affecting 13,500 travelers.
Steven Greenway, CEO of Saudi airline Flyadeal, said the recall took place late in the evening, which avoided more serious disruption. The airline said it had repaired all 13 affected planes and would resume normal operations by midnight.
“It was a great team effort, but our luck also held up to the timing,” Greenway told Reuters.
Airlines must revert to an earlier version of a computer’s software for determining the nose angle of affected planes and, in some cases, must also change the hardware itself, mostly on older planes in service. The fix must be completed before planes can fly with passengers again, a process that requires two to three hours per plane.
Worldwide, there are approximately 11,300 single-aisle aircraft in service, including 6,440 of the base model A320. These include some of the largest and most active low-cost carriers.
Tracking data from Cirium and FlightAware has shown that most global airports are operating with good to moderate levels of delays.
Airbus told airlines on Saturday that repairs to some of the affected A320s may be less extensive than initially thought, industry sources said, with fewer than 1,000 planes requiring lengthy hardware changes compared to the initial estimate.
Even so, industry executives said the abrupt move was a rare and potentially costly headache at a time when maintenance is under pressure worldwide due to labor and parts shortages.
There were also unresolved questions about the impact of solar flares blamed on the JetBlue incident, which is being treated by French investigators as an “incident,” the lowest of three categories of potential safety emergency.
“Any operational challenges that arise at short notice and affect a large part of your operations are difficult to manage,” said John Strickland, a UK-based aviation consultant.
