Airlines around the world reported short-term disruptions heading into the weekend as they fixed software on a widely used commercial aircraft, after an analysis found the computer code may have contributed to a sudden drop in the altitude of a JetBlue plane last month.
Airbus said Friday that an examination of the JetBlue incident revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls on the A320 family of aircraft.
The FAA joined the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in requiring airlines to address the issue with a new software update after the problem was introduced by an earlier update to the planes’ onboard computers. More than 500 U.S.-registered aircraft were impacted.
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury apologized to customers after the required fix led to “significant logistical challenges and delays.”
“Our teams are working around the clock to support our operators and ensure these updates are deployed as swiftly as possible to get planes back in the sky and resume normal operations, with the safety assurance you expect from Airbus,” he wrote in a message posted on LinkedIn on Saturday.
The software change comes as U.S. passengers were beginning to head home from the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel time in the country.
American Airlines has about 480 planes from the A320 family, of which 209 were affected. The fix was expected to take about two hours for many aircraft and updates were completed for the overwhelming majority on Friday, the airline said.
On Saturday, the airline said in a statement that only four planes still needed to be updated and that it “expects no further operational impact.”
Delta said it expected the issue to affect less than 50 of its A321neo aircraft. United said six planes in its fleet were affected and it expects minor disruptions to a few flights. Hawaiian Airlines said it was unaffected.
Mike Stengel, a partner with the aerospace industry management consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, said the fix could be addressed between flights or on overnight plane checks.
“Definitely not ideal for this to be happening on a very ubiquitous aircraft on a busy holiday weekend,” Stengel said from Ann Arbor, Mich. “Although again the silver lining being that it only should take a few hours to update the software.”
At least 15 JetBlue passengers were injured and taken to the hospital after the Oct. 30 incident on board the flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, N.J. The plane was diverted to Tampa, Florida.
Airbus, which is registered in the Netherlands but has its main headquarters in France, is one of the world’s biggest airplane manufacturers, alongside Boeing.
The A320 is the primary competitor to Boeing’s 737, Stengel said. Airbus updated its engine in the mid-2010s, and planes in this category are called A320neo, he said.
The A320 is the world’s bestselling single-aisle aircraft family, according to Airbus’ website.
