Global airlines race to fix jets after Airbus recall
Global airlines scrambled to fix a software bug on Airbus A320 jets after the European plane maker’s partial recall grounded hundreds of flights in Asia and Europe and threatened US travel on the busiest weekend of the year.
Airlines worked through the night after global regulators told them to fix the problem before resuming flights.
On Saturday, several carriers, including American Airlines, Air India, Delta Air Lines and Hungary’s Wizz Air, said they had completed or nearly completed repairs to their fleets.
Many reported no impact on operations.
Airlines’ efforts overnight helped prevent the worst-case scenario and limited the number of flight delays in Asia and Europe.
The US will face heavy demand after the Thanksgiving holiday period.
“It’s not as chaotic as some people think,” said Asia-based aviation analyst Brendan Sobie.
“But it creates some short-term headaches for operations.”
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury apologized to airlines and passengers following the surprise recall of 6,000 aircraft, or more than half the global A320 family fleet, that recently overtook the Boeing 737 as the industry’s most delivered model.
“I would like to sincerely apologize to our airline customers and passengers who are currently impacted,” Faury said on LinkedIn.
Friday’s warning followed an unintended loss of altitude on a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, U.S., on Oct. 30, which injured 10 passengers, according to France’s BEA accident agency, which is investigating the incident.
The warning comes at a time when many European airlines and Asian airlines are postponing schedules, mostly for short- and medium-haul jets such as the A320, which do not require them to fly at night, leaving time for repairs.
But in the United States, this happened ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel weekend.
Steven Greenway, chief executive of Saudi airline Flyadeal, said the recall occurred late in the evening, preventing a more serious disruption.
The airline said all 13 affected jets had been repaired and would resume normal operations from midnight.
“It was a great team effort, but we also got lucky with the timing,” Greenway told Reuters.
Airlines must roll back to an earlier version of the software on the computer that helps determine the nose angle of the affected jets, and in some cases, especially on older planes in service, they must also replace the hardware itself.
On Saturday, Airbus told airlines that repairs to some of the affected A320 jets may be less burdensome than first thought, with fewer than the original estimate of 1,000 needing time-consuming hardware changes, industry sources said.
Even so, industry executives said the sudden move was a rare and potentially costly headache at a time when maintenance is under pressure from labor and parts shortages around the world.
There were also unresolved questions about the impact of solar flare radiation blamed for the JetBlue incident, which was treated by French investigators as an “incident”, the smallest of three categories of possible safety emergencies.
“Operational challenges that arise in a short period of time and impact a large part of your operation are difficult to deal with,” said UK-based aviation consultant John Strickland.
The fix must be completed before planes can fly with passengers again; a process that requires two to three hours per jet.
Worldwide, approximately 11,300 single-aisle jets are in service, including 6,440 of the core A320 models.
These include some of the largest and busiest low-cost carriers.
Tracking data from Cirium and FlightAware showed that most global airports were operating with good to moderate delays.
