Europe’s Airbus said yesterday it was ordering immediate repairs to 6,000 of its widely used A320 family of jets in a sweeping recall affecting more than half the global fleet, threatening upheaval during the busiest travel weekend of the year in the United States and disruption worldwide.
The setback appears to be among the largest recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model. At the time Airbus issued its bulletin to the plane’s more than 350 operators, some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air.
The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software and is relatively simple, but must be carried out before the planes can fly again, other than repositioning to repair centres, according to the bulletin to airlines seen by our correspondent.
Airlines from the United States to South America, Europe, India and New Zealand warned the repairs could potentially cause flight delays or cancellations.
The world’s largest A320 operator, American Airlines, said some 340 of its 480 A320 aircraft would need the fix. It said it mostly expected these to be completed by Saturday with about two hours required for each plane.
Other airlines said they would take planes briefly out of service to do the repairs, including Germany’s Lufthansa , India’s IndiGo and UK-based easyJet.
Colombian carrier Avianca said the recall affected more than 70% of its fleet, prompting it to close ticket sales for travel dates through December 8.
There are around 11,300 A320-family jets in operation, including 6,440 of the core A320 model, which first flew in 1987. Four of the world’s 10 biggest A320-family operators are major U.S. airlines: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue and United Airlines. Chinese, European and Indian carriers are also among the jet’s biggest customers.
For about two-thirds of the affected jets, the recall will result in a brief grounding as airlines revert to a previous software version, industry sources said.
Still, that comes at a time when airline repair shops are already overrun by maintenance work, as hundreds of Airbus jets have been grounded due to long waiting times for separate engine repairs or inspections. The industry also has labour shortages.
“The timing is definitely not ideal for an issue like this to arise on one of the most ubiquitous aircraft around the (U.S.) holidays,” Mike Stengel of AeroDynamic Advisory said.
But due to the quick repair time, many jets can be fixed between scheduled flights or during overnight checks, he added.
Britain’s easyJet said it had already completed the work.
A senior airline industry source, however, said sequencing the repairs at a time when demand is high and fleets are already facing maintenance delays was expected to be a major challenge.
Aviation analyst Rob Morris said there were questions over how much hangar capacity would immediately be available.
JetBlue incident leads to probe
Airbus said a recent incident had revealed that solar flares may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.
Industry sources said the incident that triggered the unexpected repair action involved a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, on October 30, in which several passengers were hurt following a sharp loss of altitude.
That A320 jet made an emergency landing at Tampa, Florida, after a flight control problem and a sudden uncommanded drop in altitude, prompting a Federal Aviation Administration investigation. JetBlue and the FAA had no comment on the recall.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency late on Friday issued an emergency directive making the fix mandatory.
Global travel chaos
An Airbus spokesperson estimated the repairs would affect 6,000 jets in total, confirming an earlier Reuters report.
The temporary groundings for repairs for some airlines could be much longer since more than 1,000 of the affected jets may also have to have hardware changed, industry sources said.
The abrupt recall sent ripples around the world.
ANA Holdings, Japan’s biggest airline, says it cancelled 65 flights on Saturday. The carrier, along with affiliates such as Peach Aviation, is the biggest operator in Japan of single-aisle Airbus aircraft, including the A320.
ANA’s chief rival, Japan Airlines , has a mostly Boeing fleet and does not fly the A320.
Jetstar Airways, the budget arm of Australia’s national flag carrier Qantas, said it was impacted by the recall, but Qantas said there was no impact on its aircraft.
A Virgin Australia spokesperson said the company did “not anticipate any impact to either Virgin Australia or our Regional Airline operations.”
A Finnair flight was delayed almost an hour as pilots established which software version they had, a passenger said. Air New Zealand warned of a number of cancellations.
Air France said it was cancelling 35 flights, 5% of the airline’s daily total. Mexico’s Volaris said it would be hit by delays or cancellations for up to 72 hours.
Saudi budget airline flynas said that software and technical recalibration will be carried out on part of its fleet, causing some delays in schedule.
Launched in 1984, the A320 was the first mainstream jetliner to introduce “fly-by-wire” computer controls.
It competes with the Boeing 737 MAX, which suffered a lengthy worldwide grounding after fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, blamed on poorly designed flight-control software.
Demand for the two main brands of workhorse jets has surged in recent years as economic growth led by Asia brought tens of millions of new travellers into the skies.
Originally designed to serve hubs, the single-aisle models were later widely adopted by low-cost carriers. The connections they provide now represent a significant slice of the economy.
The Airbus bulletin seen by Reuters traced the problem to a flight system called ELAC (Elevator and Aileron Computer), which sends commands from the pilot’s side-stick to elevators at the rear. These in turn control the aircraft’s pitch or nose angle.
The computer’s manufacturer, France’s Thales, said in response to a Reuters query that the computer complies with Airbus specifications and the functionality in question is supported by software that is not under Thales’ responsibility.
