A recent incident involving an A320 plane has revealed that intense solar radiation can affect the control of the aircraft, due to a software glitch, European aircraft manufacturer Airbus announced on Friday.
The A320 is Airbus' most widely used aircraft with more than 11,000 in service worldwide. More than 6,500 planes could be in need of the update and will not be allowed to take off until it is implemented. This has led to hundreds of flight cancellations around the world, with perhaps the biggest impact on travelers in the United States, where the Thanksgiving holiday means many are on the move.
No disturbances
The airline SAS writes on Saturday that all their flights will operate as usual.
"Following a new Emergency Airworthiness Directive from EASA that was issued yesterday, the SAS team has worked diligently throughout the night to install the necessary software on all affected aircraft," writes SAS's Head of Communications Alexandra Lindgren Kaoukji to TT.
According to Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK, Norwegian has no planes of the current model. Finnair states that it has carried out all updates on the twelve affected planes during the night to Saturday and that all flights will operate as usual, reports HBL .
I apologize.
Sources familiar with the situation tell Bloomberg that most of the aircraft can be upgraded from the cockpit, but about 1,000 older planes will need to have their hardware updated and will be out of service for an extended period.
In a post on X on Saturday, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury apologized to airlines and passengers affected by the unplanned update.
“But we believe that nothing is more important than safety when people fly on one of our Airbus aircraft, which millions of people do every day,” he writes.
