Airbus A320 fleet nears full recovery after rapid software fix

Airbus says its global A320-family fleet is largely back to normal after airlines rushed through an urgent software update prompted by a newly discovered space-weather vulnerability, Reuters reports. 

The issue surfaced after a recent in-flight incident involving a JetBlue A320, where investigators identified a potential exposure to solar flares in the aircraft’s computer systems. 

Regulators quickly mandated an immediate software rollback across the fleet, triggering one of the broadest emergency actions ever issued by the European manufacturer.

Airbus confirmed Monday that the majority of the roughly 6,000 affected A320-family aircraft have already completed the required fix, with fewer than 100 jets still awaiting updates. 

Airlines across Asia, Europe and North America reported finishing the retrofit over the weekend.

Some carriers continue to navigate residual disruption. 

According to Reuters, Avianca has paused new bookings on select dates through December 8, and JetBlue—whose aircraft was involved in the initial investigation—cancelled about 20 flights on Monday. 

JetBlue expects 137 of its 150 impacted aircraft to be back online by the end of the day.

The eight-page alert, issued Friday, required airlines to reload an earlier version of the aircraft’s flight-control software before operating affected aircraft. 

For U.S. carriers, the timing briefly overlapped with the Thanksgiving travel period.

The directive prompted carriers to rapidly verify software versions across their fleets. 

Early on, operators struggled with the lack of serial-number specifics and had to manually confirm the status of individual aircraft, which led to isolated delays at the gate.

As engineers narrowed down which jets were impacted, the number of affected aircraft was revised downward. 

The work—estimated at three hours per aircraft—proceeded faster than initially expected.

easyJet and Wizz Air said they finished the updates over the weekend without cancelling flights.

A smaller group of older A320-family aircraft will require replacement flight-computer hardware rather than a software rollback. 

With chip shortages still affecting the global supply chain, it remains unclear how long those aircraft will stay out of service.

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