Airbus Fixes Most A320 Jets Affected by Software Glitch, Minimizing Travel Disruption
Airbus has successfully fixed most of the 6,000 A320-family aircraft impacted by a significant software glitch, marking the largest recall in the company's 55-year history. The issue is believed to have been caused by intense solar radiation corrupting data critical to flight-control systems. The recall coincided with the US Thanksgiving weekend, affecting airlines such as Delta, United, and American Airlines.
By Monday, the vast majority of the software updates were complete, with fewer than 100 aircraft still requiring the update. While most fixes involve installing an older software version taking 2–3 hours per aircraft, up to 15% of jets may still need hardware upgrades. Approximately 900 older planes might require hardware changes, which could take weeks due to limited supplies.
Separately, Airbus identified and contained a limited quality issue with some A320 metal panels. Newly produced panels now conform to requirements. Following this, Airbus shares fell as much as 6% after Reuters reported the problem but were down about 4% over the past five days and had been up roughly 20% for the year before this incident.
UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander noted that the impact on UK airlines appeared limited and would be swiftly addressed. EasyJet and Wizz Air successfully completed software updates over the weekend without flight cancellations. JetBlue anticipated returning 137 of its 150 affected aircraft to service by Monday while planning to cancel about 20 flights.
This recall follows the recent milestone of the A320 surpassing the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered jet. Airbus is headquartered near Toulouse and employs approximately 157,000 people.
