Update after 90 Jetstar flights cancelled amid Airbus software upgrade
Jetstar has issued an update after it was forced to cancel 90 flights over the weekend following an emergency directive from aircraft manufacturer, Airbus.
Jetstar’s operations are officially back to normal after Airbus issued a sudden software update that affected almost 100 Jetstar flights on Saturday - and left thousands of passengers stranded.
Safety fears grounded around 6,000 Airbus A320s across the globe on Friday to Sunday, with the aircraft manufacturer directing airlines to immediately update its systems due to concerns solar radiation could corrupt flight controls.
As a result, 90 Jetstar flights were cancelled on Saturday as engineers raced to install a software patch to fix an issue that was discovered following an in-flight incident in North America earlier this year.
“Analysis of a recent event involving an A320 Family aircraft has revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls,” the aircraft manufacturer said in a statement on Saturday.
“Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in-service which may be impacted.”
On Monday, the manufacturer issued an updated statement that the “vast majority” of aircraft have now received the necessary modifications.
“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 said.
As of 8.30am on Sunday, the required Airbus software update had been applied to all affected Jetstar aircraft with operations officially back to normal.
“We thank our customers for their understanding and patience,” a Jetstar spokesperson told news.com.au.
Jetstar Airways chief pilot and head of flying operations, Tyrone Simes, said to correct the problem, the engineering team had to physically change the software status of the 34 affected aircraft and carry out flight control checks.
“What we’ve been notified from Airbus, the manufacture, and also a directive from the European Aviation Safety Authority is that there is a particular flight control computer on-board the aeroplane that in a certain circumstance has shown an anomaly … and as a result of that, they have given us a maintenance directive to reverse that software upgrade which is a maintenance action on-board the aeroplane before it can be released for service again,” Mr Simes told media on Saturday.
Mr Simes said the engineering team need to physically board each plane to change the software status and will need to “carry out some flight control checks after that is done to ensure that (it has) both been effective and the aeroplane (can) safely dispatch.”
Each update took between two and three hours.
Airbus apologised for the hefty travel delays following instruction of its “immediate precautionary action” that affected more than half of its global fleet.
It came after a JetBlue-operated A320 aircraft encountered an in-flight control issue on October 30, due to a computer malfunction apparently caused by solar radiation affecting the equipment.
The plane suddenly nosedived as it travelled between Cancun in Mexico and Newark in the United States, and pilots had to land in Tampa, Florida.
Aussie airport chaos
Videos and images circulating on social media showed long queues across major Australian airports as Jetstar frantically tried to update its on-board systems.
Elisha Faithh was heading to Sydney from Adelaide on Saturday to celebrate her 18th birthday when her Jetstar flight was suddenly grounded.
“Our flight to Sydney was meant to depart at 7.15am and we were told it was cancelled during the boarding process,” Elisha told news.com.au.
The teen shared a TikTok from Adelaide airport that showed packed gates as passengers were informed of the unfolding situation.
“At first we were just told the flight was cancelled and to proceed to the check in desk which is outside of security and there was a MASSIVE queue,” she said.
“We were later informed that that the issue was solar radiation affecting the navigation GPS and flight controls.”
Elisha, who was travelling with her family, said her mother was able to get them on a Virgin flight.
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“My mum scrambled to the Virgin desk to book onto the next flight which was full but got us onto a later flight with 10 seats left. The tickets for all five of us on the Virgin flight cost $2600.”
News.com.au understands due to the disruption caused by the Airbus software update, any passengers booked to travel on Saturday, November 29 were able to cancel for a full refund or could move their flight for free up to 7 days later.
“Customers were also moved to Qantas flights where space was available, provided with refreshment vouchers and we covered accommodation for those delayed overnight away from home,” a Jetstar spokesperson told news.com.au.
