Airbus has updated the “vast majority” of recalled 6,000 A320 aircraft that caused disruption over the weekend, the manufacturer said in an update on Monday (December 1).
“We are working with our airline customers to support the modification of less than 100 remaining aircraft to ensure they can be returned to service,” the company said.
Late on Friday, Airbus said an examination of an incident in late October where a JetBlue flight suffered a sudden altitude drop after a flight control issue, injuring at least 15 people.
The company revealed that intense solar radiation had prompted the incident, warning that it could corrupt data that is critical to the function of flight controls on its A320 family.
This prompted a scramble to implement a software update causing disruption over the weekend.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) sent out a directive on Friday, ordering airlines to install a software update. The US’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) followed, requiring airlines to address the issue.
The intense solar radiation impacted the elevator aileron computer (ELAC) of the aircraft.
EASA said that malfunctioned ELAC’s could lead “in the worst-case scenario to an uncommanded elevator movement that may result in exceeding the aircraft’s structural capability”.
Airlines globally cancelled or delayed flights to fix the issues.
Wizz Air said in an update on Saturday that it had completed the necessary software updates overnight, avoiding the weekend disruption of some of its peers and had zero flight cancellations.
The European low-cost carrier said 83 of its operational aircraft was impacted and required an immediate software update.
American Airlines said it needed to update just over 200 aircraft, stating on Saturday that all aircraft had been complete. The airline had said that the update took around two hours to complete.
Meanwhile, easyJet had completed the required software updates on all operational aircraft over the weekend. The airline said today that its financial outlook remains in line with its full year guidance from late November.
“This work was completed without any disruption to our flying programme,” said easyJet CEO Kenton Jarvis.
Jet2, British Airways, and Aer Lingus had said the impact was limited with no significant disruptions.
AirAsia was able to complete the updates across 96 aircraft in 25 hours after it was notified of the required software update.
CEO of AirAsia owner Capital A Tony Fernandes said the company had initially worried that the incident would be a “massive blow” with it initially projected it would not have all its aircraft return to service until December.
“This problem looked like it would ground many aircraft for a long time,” said Fernandes.
However, he said the team was able to quickly devise a solution and implement the upgrades. Fernandes commended Airbus CEO Christian Scherer for his leadership.
Meanwhile, Japan’s All Nippon Airways cancelled 95 domestic flights over the weekend due to the software issue.
Saudi Arabia's flyadeal said on Saturday it expected to be fully operational by midnight that night, with only 13 of its 43-strong fleet affected.