Long night for airlines. Following Airbus’ announcement of possible failures in the flight control of , uncertainty has gripped those who plan to fly. Although at first this Saturday there were some delays and cancellations, the correction of the failure through a computer update for most of the 6,000 affected aircraft and the rapid coordinated work between airlines and the aircraft manufacturer have avoided complete air chaos.
The repair process is relatively quick: the software update required for 5,100 A320 devices is estimated to take about three hours to install. Greater concern was over those older models that needed to physically replace the on-board computers. Initially these were estimated at 900 aircraft, although in recent hours Airbus has informed the airlines that the final figure is lower than initially estimated. “It seems that there are many fewer A320s impacted in a more lasting way by the computer change. There had been talk of a thousand and it seems that in the end it is about a hundred,” said the French Minister of Transport, Philippe Tabarot, on BFMTV television this Saturday.
This has not prevented certain disturbances from occurring, although in a very uneven way. While companies such as the Portuguese TAP, the Belgian Brussels Airlines or the Spanish Iberia have reported that they do not expect delays or cancellations to occur today or tomorrow, after having worked throughout the night to carry out the required updates, others have suffered incidents. American Airlines, the world’s largest A320 operator, has indicated it expects some delays, although it reduced the number of aircraft requiring software repairs to 209, from 340 previously planned. As of 9 p.m. ET, only four of the affected American Airlines planes still required repairs.
Another US airline, United Airlines, is anticipating minor disruptions to some flights, after reporting that six aircraft were affected by the recall. The crisis could not come at a worse time for US airlines, given that this weekend is the one with the largest number of flights of the year, because it follows the Thanksgiving holiday.
In any case, the good news is that the rapid reaction is leaving a very limited number of people affected. Air France has announced the cancellation of 35 flights, the German Lufthansa speaks of a small number of cancellations or delays over the weekend. Air India, with 113 aircraft affected, has completed software repair on 69 aircraft, and while some flight delays are expected, there will be no cancellations. Similar is the case with IndiGo, India’s largest airline, which has completed software repairs on 184 of its 200 aircraft, and has warned of some delays. While the Japanese airline ANA Holdings has canceled 95 flights.
In Latin America, But the most affected has been the Colombian Avianca, which indicated that the withdrawal of aircraft affected more than 70% of its fleet, which will cause significant interruptions over the next 10 days.
Most airlines, however, are being able to deal with the problem quickly. For example, Hungarian low-cost Wizz Air has announced that the software update was rolled out overnight to all of its affected A320s, and does not anticipate any further disruption.
immersed these days in the first international trip of his papacy. Airbus has had to send a technician to Istanbul, where the Pontiff’s plane is located. As reported this Saturday by the Holy See, “a component of the plane and the technician who will replace it are flying to Istanbul.”
Precisely, in the case of the Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines, the incidence is also low. Of the first’s 440 aircraft, only eight are affected and their operations are taking place without interruptions, as specified by Yahya Üstün, head of Communications at Turkish Airlines. At Pegasus, which has not revealed the total number of units under repair, of its fleet of 112 aircraft, 46 are models of the A320 family. However, at Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, its main base of operations, there have been no notable delays and cancellations have been limited to two domestic flights.
The Airbus A320 model is designed to fly short and medium distances, and it is one of the company’s best-sellers, with some 11,300 examples in operation around the world. Of all of them, about 6,000 require the review by which Avianca has seen its activities affected. The flight on which the incident that led to the inspection occurred covered the route between Cancun (Mexico) and New Jersey (United States), on October 30, and had to make an emergency landing at the Tampa airport.
