By Tim Kelly, Abhijith Ganapavaram and Tim Hepher
PARIS, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Global airlines scrambled on Saturday to fix a software glitch on their Airbus A320 jets as a recall by the European planemaker temporarily grounded aircraft in Asia and Europe and threatened travel in the United States during the busiest weekend of the year.
The recall of 6,000 planes, covering more than half of Airbus’ global A320-family fleet, is among the broadest in its 55-year history and is a blow for the planemaker weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model.
Airlines worked through the night to make fixes after Airbus issued the emergency recall to 350 operators around the world, and global regulators directed carriers to remedy the software problem before resuming flights.
That appeared to help head off the worst-case scenario and capped the number of flight delays in Asia and Europe early on Saturday. The U.S. will face high travel demand later in the day after the Thanksgiving holiday period.
“It’s not as chaotic as some people might think,” said Asia-based independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie, adding that airlines were always prepared for various potential disruptions. “But it does create some short-term headaches for operations.”
Airbus is also now telling airlines that emergency repairs to some of the A320 jets affected may be less burdensome than first thought, industry sources said, with fewer than feared likely to need hardware changes rather than the software fix.
Even so, industry executives said the abrupt action was a rare and potentially costly headache at a time when maintenance is under pressure worldwide from labour and parts shortages.
FIX IS SIMPLE BUT NECESSARY
Globally, there are about 11,300 of the single-aisle jets in service, including 6,440 of the core A320 model. The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software, and although relatively simple, it must be completed before the planes can fly again.
European low-budget airline Wizz Air said early on Saturday that software updates had been implemented overnight on all its affected A320-family jets with no further disruption expected.
Flight tracker data from Cirium and FlightAware showed most global airports operating with good-to-moderate levels of delays.
AirAsia, one of the world’s largest A320 customers, said that it aimed to complete fixes in 48 hours, with engineering teams “working around the clock”.
India’s aviation regulator said 338 Airbus aircraft in the country were affected but the software reset would be completed by Sunday. The country’s largest airline, IndiGo, said it had completed the reset on 160 out of 200 aircraft while Air India said it had done 42 of its 113 impacted planes. Both airlines warned of delays.
Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration instructed airlines to conduct inspections and maintenance. It estimates that around two-thirds of the 67 A320 and A321 aircraft operated by the island’s carriers are affected.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Macao said it had asked Air Macau to address the issue, including rescheduling flights to minimise any disruption to passengers.
ANA Holdings, Japan’s biggest airline, cancelled 95 flights on Saturday affecting 13,500 travellers.
ANA and its affiliates, such as Peach Aviation, operate the most Airbus A320 jets in Japan. Its chief rival, Japan Airlines, has a mostly Boeing fleet and does not fly the A320.
OCTOBER INCIDENT TRIGGERED RECALL, SOURCES SAY
Industry sources said a sharp loss of altitude on a JetBlue flight on October 30 from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, that injured several passengers had triggered the Airbus recall.
Jetstar, the budget carrier of Australia’s flag carrier Qantas, said some of its flights would be affected.
South Korea’s Asiana Airlines said it does not expect any significant disruptions to its flight schedule. Its domestic rival, Korean Air, said it was working to get 10 of its jets back into service.
South Korea’s Transport Ministry said upgrades to 42 aircraft there were expected to be completed by Sunday morning.
Hong Kong budget carrier HK Express said it had upgraded more than half of its affected aircraft and that flight operations were normal.
The world’s largest A320 operator, American Airlines, said 209 of its 480 A320 aircraft needed the fix, revised down from an earlier estimate, most of which it expected to complete by Saturday.
Other U.S. carriers Delta Air Lines, JetBlue and United Airlines are also among the world’s 10 biggest A320-family operators.
Germany’s Lufthansa and Britain’s easyJet were among other airlines that said they would do the repairs.
Middle East low-cost carrier Air Arabia said it would implement “required measures” across impacted aircraft.
Colombian carrier Avianca said the recall affected more than 70% of its fleet, prompting it to close ticket sales for travel dates through December 8.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris, Tim Kelly and Maki Shiraki in Tokyo, Abhijith Ganapavaram in New Delhi, Sam McKeith in Sydney, Ben Blanchard in Taipei, Jack Kim in Seoul, Ziyi Tang in Beijing, John Geddie in Hong Kong and Menna Alaaeldin in Cairo, Michele Kambas in Cyprus; Editing by William Mallard, Adam Jourdan, Kirsten Donovan)
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