Jetstar cancels domestic flights across Australia after global Airbus A320 recall | Airbus

Jetstar has grounded part of its Airbus fleet and canceled domestic flights across Australia following the aviation manufacturer’s global recall of its A320 aircraft.

Airbus said on Friday it had ordered an urgent software change to a “significant number” of its best-selling A320 family aircraft, the narrow-body aircraft also used by Virgin Australia and Qantas.

Jetstar said some of its flights were unable to depart on Saturday morning but did not immediately confirm how many planes were grounded or which routes would be affected.

“Jetstar is affected by a software issue across its Airbus fleet that affects all A320 family operators worldwide,” the airline said.

“Safety is our number one priority. We have canceled some Jetstar Airways flights in response to Airbus’ injunction.

“Our teams are working on options to get customers back on track as quickly as possible and are contacting affected customers directly.”

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The global recall was issued following an incident on October 30 on a JetBlue flight from Cancún, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, in which several passengers were injured due to the sudden drop in altitude.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency, the main certification authority for A320 aircraft, described the incident in its recall notice as an “uncommanded and limited landing event” but said that if left uncorrected, it could lead to “an uncommanded elevator movement that could cause the structural capacity of the aircraft to be exceeded” in a worst-case scenario.

Qantas also has aircraft from the A320 family, but the airline said on Saturday that no aircraft or flights were affected as none of its fleet required software updates.

Virgin Australia operates four A320-class aircraft on its Western Australia regional service but has said its Boeing 737 fleet can accommodate the small number of flights on which the A320s will fly.

“We do not anticipate any impact to Virgin Australia or our regional airline operations,” a spokesman for the company said in a statement on Saturday morning.

Air New Zealand operates A320 aircraft on its domestic and international network. The airline said it had canceled 12 flights on Saturday and expected “some further disruption today”, but all services between New Zealand and Australia were continuing.

“Customers traveling today should continue to check the Air NZ app or website for the latest information on their flights,” chief safety and risk officer Nathan McGraw said.

“We will provide updates on the impacts to our program as soon as we have more information. We know unexpected changes are frustrating and we are working hard to keep customers moving wherever possible.”

“This is a precautionary software update and does not pose an immediate safety risk to our flights,” McGraw said.

Airbus said in a statement that in the latest incident involving an A320 family aircraft, it ordered the software upgrade after it was revealed that intense solar radiation could corrupt data critical to the operation of flight controls.

“Airbus has worked proactively with aviation authorities to request immediate action from operators via Alert Operators Transmission (AOT) to enforce existing software and/or hardware protections and enable the fleet to fly safely,” a spokesperson said.

The company acknowledged that these “advice” would cause inconvenience to passengers and apologized for the inconvenience caused.