Airlines easyJet and Wizz Air have confirmed flights continued to operate as normal throughout the weekend despite an urgent software update on some of their aircraft to fix potential problems caused by solar radiation.
Budget airline easyJet said it completed the required update on affected Airbus A320 aircraft, following a notice on Friday from authorities, but that its flying programme ran as normal throughout the weekend and is “expected to continue to do so”.
Low-cost European carrier Wizz Air said 83 of its aircraft needed the immediate update and that this was successfully completed, with no flight cancellations.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the main certifying authority for the A320 family of aircraft, on Friday night issued an instruction to update one of the aircraft’s onboard computers as a “precautionary action”.
Passengers had been told to expect “limited” travel disruption over the weekend but on Saturday afternoon the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the impact in Britain was minimal.
Airbus said on Friday that it had emerged following investigations after a recent incident that “intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls”.
It cautioned this could lead to “operational disruptions to passengers and customers” and said at the time that a “significant” number of its A320 aircraft would need an immediate software update.
The warning sparked fears of flight delays and cancellations around the world – which came ahead of the busy travel weekend following last Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday in America.
Luton-based easyJet – whose fleet is entirely made up of Airbus aircraft – said it “worked closely with regulators and Airbus to determine the necessary immediate actions” and completed all the required software updates over the weekend.
“Our flying programme operated as normal throughout the weekend and is expected to continue to do so,” it said.
Kenton Jarvis, easyJet’s chief executive, added: “Safety is, and always will be, our absolute priority.
“I’m incredibly proud of our engineering teams, who worked around the clock over the weekend to implement the necessary software updates.
“This work was completed without any disruption to our flying programme, and I would like to thank all of our engineering and operational colleagues for their continued dedication.”
Wizz Air said: “Due to the co-ordinated response of the engineering and operations teams, this mandatory maintenance has been managed with zero flight cancellations.”
The decision by Airbus to roll out the update reportedly comes after an incident on October 30 that saw a JetBlue aircraft flying from Cancun in Mexico to Newark in New Jersey suffered a computer glitch, which caused a sudden drop in altitude and forced the crew to make an emergency landing in Florida.
The A320 aircraft affected by the software issues are the world’s most popular short-haul plane operated by airlines worldwide, such as easyJet, Wizz Air, Lufthansa, American Airlines and United Airlines.
British Airways said on Saturday that passengers should not face any significant disruption as only three of their aircraft required the update.
It is understood that around 6,000 planes in the A320 family were affected by the tech issue, most of which can be fixed by the software update, although about 900 older aircraft reportedly require a hardware change before they can fly again, which could take several weeks.
Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This is likely to bring additional costs for either Airbus or Thales, as the latter was responsible for developing the affected software.
“It’s not yet clear who will have to foot the bill when all is said and done, but in a worst-case scenario, the impact is expected to be limited to a few tens of millions of euro.”
Airbus shares were 3% lower in Paris on Monday morning, although UK airline stocks proved largely resilient given the minimal disruption to flights, with British Airways owner International Airlines Group and easyJet both 1% lower, while Wizz Air was 1% higher and Jet2 Holidays down 1%.
