Some 93 domestic flights have been affected, with 82 cancelled and 11 delayed – affecting over 14,000 passengers – following an Airbus alert that up to 6,000 A320 aircraft worldwide may require upgrades.
Airbus instructed its clients over the weekend to take “immediate precautionary action” after evaluating a technical malfunction on board a JetBlue flight in October.
“Intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls,” it said, adding that “a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in-service” may be affected.
Replacing the software will take “a few hours” on most planes but for some 1,000 aircraft, the process “will take weeks,” a source close to the issue told Agence France Presse.
In Manila, Air Carriers Association of the Philippines (ACAP) executive director Josen Perez de Tagle said airline operators have given assurance that the entire system upgrade will be completed by noon today (Sunday).
“Given this software update that was mandatory, that we needed to do, we’d like to assure the public that the airlines are doing their best to notify all to minimize the effect of the system upgrade,” De Tagle said.
Airbus’ software update advisory was sent to Philippine aviation authorities early Saturday morning, with upgrades immediately installed to minimize passenger inconvenience.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said: “These measures may cause short-term disruption to flight schedules and therefore inconvenience to passengers…Safety is paramount.”
Airbus did not specify which company had designed the software.
“Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,” it said, apologizing for the inconvenience.
On October 30, a JetBlue-operated A320 aircraft encountered an in-flight control issue due to a computer malfunction.
The plane suddenly nosedived as it travelled between Cancun in Mexico and Newark in the United States, and pilots had to land in Tampa, Florida.
US media quoted local firefighters saying that some passengers were injured.
Contacted by Agence France Presse, JetBlue did not comment on the incident but said it had already begun necessary changes on some A320 and A321 models.
Produced since 1988, the A320 is the world’s best-selling airplane. Airbus sold 12,257 of the aircraft by the end of September compared with the sale of 12,254 Boeing 737s. With AFP
