By R Anil Kumar
January 1, 2025. Thousands of Airbus A320 aircraft have received software updates after the Toulouse-based manufacturer found that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.
“Out of a total number of around 6,000 aircraft potentially impacted, the vast majority have now received the necessary modifications,” the company said in a statement on Monday.
“We are working with our airline customers to support the modification of less than 100 remaining aircraft to ensure they can be returned to service,” it added.
Airbus on Friday asked airlines to urgently carry out updates as a precautionary measure following an analysis of an incident at the end of October involving an A320 aircraft.
According to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), a A320 aircraft operated by US airline Jetblue was forced to make an emergency landing on October 30 following issues with flight control and a sudden loss in altitude.
Affected planes are no longer allowed to take off without the modifications.
The global directive appeared to have little impact on flight traffic, however, with some airlines already having done the update by Friday evening.
German flagship carrier Lufthansa said on Monday that it had updated the software of all affected aircraft on Saturday, with flight operations resuming as normal.
Lowcost airline EasyJet also said it successfully completed the required software updates on all of its Airbus A320 aircraft.
“This work was completed without any disruption to our flying programme,” chief executive Kenton Jarvis said.
