Flights resume as normal after software update warning

Thousands of Airbus planes are returning to normal service after being grounded for hours due to warnings that solar radiation could affect flight control computers.

The aviation giant, headquartered in France, said around 6,000 A320 aircraft were affected and most required a rapid software update. About 900 old planes need a new computer.

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said the updates “went very smoothly” for more than 5,000 aircraft.

According to local media reports, Airbus told him that “less than 100 aircraft” still needed the upgrade.

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury apologized for what he called “logistical difficulties and delays” since Friday, adding that his teams were working around the clock to ensure updates were made “as quickly as possible.”

Saturday morning saw Air France experience some disruption as many flights into and out of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport were delayed or canceled.

American Airlines said 340 of its aircraft were affected and it expected “some operational delays,” but added that the vast majority of updates were completed on Friday or Saturday. Delta Airlines said it believed the impact on its operations would be “limited.”

Disruptions at airports in the UK were limited. While it was stated that there were “some disruptions” at London Gatwick Airport, Heathrow said there were no cancellations. Manchester Airport said it did not expect any significant problems, while Luton Airport said there was “no expected impact”.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority said it was working through the night to implement the update and although some disruption was expected, very few flights were affected.

It appears that British Airways and Air India are not too affected by the issue.

Easyjet said on Saturday it had completed a “significant number” of upgrades to its aircraft and planned to operate normally.

Wizz Air is also operating normally, releasing updates overnight.

In Australia, budget airline Jetstar canceled 90 flights after confirming nearly a third of its fleet was affected; The outage is expected to continue throughout the weekend, although the majority of aircraft have already undergone the update.

Air New Zealand had grounded its A320 aircraft until the update was completed and all flights had now resumed.

Airbus discovered the problem after a JetBlue Airways plane flying between the United States and Mexico suddenly lost altitude and made an emergency landing in October. At least 15 people were injured.

The company detected a problem in the computer software that calculated the plane’s altitude and found that at high altitudes the data could be corrupted by the intense radiation periodically emitted by the Sun.

In addition to the company’s best-selling aircraft, the A320, the A318, A319 and A321 models are also affected.

While the problems of approximately 5,100 of the aircraft can be resolved with a simple software update, a replacement computer will be needed for approximately 900 older aircraft.

These planes will need to be grounded until the problem is resolved.

The length of time required will depend on the availability of spare computers.