Global Airlines Scramble to Ground Airbus A320 Family Jets for Urgent Software Fix
november 25, 2023 - Airlines worldwide are working to ground adn repair perhaps thousands of airbus A320-family aircraft following an alert from the manufacturer regarding a software issue that could led to unintended loss of altitude. The directive impacts more than half of the global fleet of A320-family jets, numbering over 6,000, which recently surpassed the boeing 737 as the industry’s most-delivered model.
The alert followed an incident on October 30 involving a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New jersey, where an unintended loss of altitude injured 10 passengers, according to France’s BEA accident agency, which is investigating.
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury issued a public apology on LinkedIn to affected customers and passengers.
Airlines are required to revert to a previous version of software controlling the nose angle of the affected jets, and in some cases, replace hardware, particularly on older aircraft. The repair process takes approximately two to three hours per jet.
As of Saturday,JetBlue had cancelled around 70 flights scheduled for Sunday,anticipating completion of software updates for 120 planes by Sunday morning,but with fixes for roughly 30 aircraft still “in progress.” Approximately 140 jets in JetBlue’s fleet of A320, A321 and A220 aircraft did not require the fix.
American Airlines, the world’s largest A320 operator, reported that 209 of its 480 jets needed the fix, with most expected to be completed by Saturday. United Airlines stated on Saturday that all its aircraft had been updated.
Globally, approximately 11,300 single-aisle A320-family jets are in service, including 6,440 of the core A320 model. AirAsia aims to complete fixes within 48 hours, while India’s aviation regulator expects IndiGo and Air India to finish the process on Saturday. ANA Holdings cancelled 95 flights on Saturday, impacting 13,500 travellers. Taiwan’s Tigerair announced delays for eight flights on Sunday.
Industry sources indicate Airbus is now suggesting repairs may be less extensive than initially estimated, with fewer than the original projection of 1,000 aircraft requiring hardware changes. Investigators are also examining the potential role of solar flare radiation in the JetBlue incident, classifying it as an “incident” – the lowest of three safety emergency categories.
“Any operational challenges that come at short notice and affecting a large part of your operation is tough to deal with,” noted UK-based aviation consultant John Strickland.
Tracker data from Cirium and flightaware showed most global airports operating with good-to-moderate levels of delays as of Saturday.
