Jetstar cancels 90 flights after urgent Airbus software glitch sparks travel chaos
Jetstar has completed software updates on its A320 Airbus fleet after international solar radiation concerns grounded 90 flights.
Jetstar has completed an urgent software fix on its 34 affected A320s, after an Airbus order in response to the revelation that intense solar radiation could corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls in the A320 family.
The “alert operators transmission” issued late on Friday by the manufacturer set the stage for a weekend of travel chaos for millions worldwide, as 6000 Airbus aircraft were effectively pulled from service.
As the largest operator of the aircraft type in Australia, Jetstar was the hardest hit, cancelling 90 flights on Saturday and a handful more on Sunday.
The low fares carrier promised refunds for passengers caught up in the chaos, or rebookings without extra charge within seven days but said strong demand meant limited seat availability.
Airbus acknowledged the disruption to flight and travellers and apologised for the inconvenience.
Jetstar chief pilot Tyrone Simes said the “fix” was in fact a direction to reverse a recent software upgrade.
“There’s a particular flight control computer that in a certain circumstance has shown an anomaly and the causal aspect was a software upgrade,” said Captain Simes.
“As a result of that they’ve given us a maintenance directive to reverse that software upgrade, which is a maintenance action onboard the aeroplane before it can be released for service again.”
It emerged that the issue became apparent when US carrier JetBlue experienced an “uncommanded drop in altitude” en route from Mexico to New Jersey on October 30.
Several passengers were injured, and the pilots made an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, where the A320 aircraft was promptly grounded.
Investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration in partnership with Airbus and JetBlue attributed the cause of the frightening loss of flight control to intense solar radiation.
An Airbus spokesman said solar and cosmic radiation consisted of high energy particles that collided with the earth’s atmosphere, generating a “cascade of secondary particles including neutrons, protons, ions and photons”.
“In the context of avionics, neutrons are the primary concern. When a neutron strikes a digital component, it causes bit flips or malfunctions in on-board computers,” said the spokesman.
“All possible effects are named single-event effects (because they are caused by a single high-energy particle).”
As a result, around 5100 aircraft in the A320 family worldwide were required to undergo the software fix, and about 900 older aeroplanes needed on-board computers to be replaced.
The Asia Pacific region was among the hardest-hit, because of the widespread use of the A320 and A321.
Cirium data showed that throughout the region, more than 3000 of the aircraft are in use.
Air New Zealand was continuing to work through the software updates on its 37 A320s on Sunday and expected a return to normal operations on Monday.
The airline’s chief risk and safety officer. Nathan McGraw said 27 flights were cancelled across the weekend while the fixes were completed.
“We know changes to travel plans are frustrating and we are grateful for the understanding shown to our teams as they worked to minimise disruption, complete the updates as quickly as possible and keep people moving wherever they could,” he said.
“We do not expect any ongoing impact from the weekend’s disruption, and services are now operating as normal.”
Virgin Australia largely escaped disruption because of the fact the airline operated just four A320s as part of its regional arm known as VARA. Any flights scheduled on Saturday were operated by other aircraft.
Qantas was also unscathed, having only recently begun taking delivery of A321XLRs.
The A320 is the most common passenger airliner in service, having overtaken the Boeing 737 in late 2025. Some 12,600 aircraft in the A320 family are in operation with about half taken out of service at the weekend for the software fix or computer replacement.
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Originally published as Jetstar cancels 90 flights after urgent Airbus software glitch sparks travel chaos
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