Jetstar has grounded some of its Airbus fleet and canceled domestic flights across Australia after the aerospace manufacturer issued a global recall of its A320 fleet.
Airbus said on Friday it was ordering immediate software changes on a “significant number” of its best-selling A320 family planes, a narrow-body plane also used by Virgin Australia and Qantas.
Jetstar said Saturday morning that some of its flights were unable to depart, but it did not immediately confirm how many planes were grounded or which routes would be affected.
“Jetstar is affected by an Airbus fleet software issue that is affecting all A320 family operators globally,” the airline said.
“Safety is our first priority. To respond to Airbus’ precautionary action, we have canceled some Jetstar Airways flights.
“Our teams are working on options to get customers back on the road as quickly as possible and are contacting affected customers directly.”
Qantas also has A320 family aircraft, but the airline said on Saturday that none of its aircraft or flights were affected as none of its fleet required a software upgrade.
According to aviation analytics company Cirium, Virgin Australia only uses A320-class aircraft on its Western Australian regional service. Virgin has been contacted for comment.
Air New Zealand operates A320 aircraft across its domestic and international network. The airline said it had canceled 12 services on Saturday and expected “some further disruption today”.
“Customers traveling today should continue to check the Air NZ app or website for the latest information on their flight,” said Nathan McGrath, its chief security and risk officer.
“We will provide updates about the impacts to our schedules as soon as we have more information. We know these unexpected changes are disappointing, and we’re working hard to keep customers moving forward wherever possible.”
“This is a precautionary software update and does not pose an immediate security risk to our flights,” McGrath said.
Airbus said in a statement that it had ordered the software upgrade after a recent incident involving A320 family aircraft that revealed intense solar radiation could corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.
“Airbus has actively worked with aviation authorities to implement available software and/or hardware protections and request immediate precautionary action from operators via Alert Operator Transmission (AOT) to ensure the fleet is safe to fly,” a spokesperson said.
The company acknowledged that these “recommendations” would result in inconvenience to passengers and apologized for the inconvenience.
More details soon
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