Jetstar has grounded some of its Airbus fleet and cancelled domestic flights across Australia after the aerospace manufacturer issued a global recall of its A320 fleet.
Airbus said on Friday it was ordering an immediate software change on a “significant number” of its bestselling A320 family of aircraft, a narrow-body plane which is also used by Virgin Australia and Qantas.
Jetstar said on Saturday morning some of its flights were unable to depart, but did not immediately confirm how many planes were grounded or which routes would be affected.
“Jetstar is impacted by an Airbus fleet software issue that’s affecting all A320 family operators globally,” the airline said.
”Safety is our number one priority. To respond to a precautionary action from Airbus, we have cancelled some Jetstar Airways flights.
“Our teams are working on options to get customers on their way as quickly as possible and are contacting affected customers directly.”
Qantas also owns planes in the A320 family, but the airline said on Saturday none of its planes or flights were affected as none of its fleet required the software upgrade.
Virgin Australia uses the A320-class planes only on its Western Australian regional service, according to the aviation analytics company Cirium. Virgin has been contacted for comment.
Air New Zealand operates A320 aircraft in its domestic and international network. The airline said it had cancelled 12 services on Saturday and was expecting “some further disruption today”, but said all its services between New Zealand and Australia were running.
“Customers travelling today should continue to check the Air NZ app or website for the latest information on their flight,” its chief safety and risk officer, Nathan McGraw, said.
“We will provide updates on impacts to our schedule as soon as we have more information. We know unexpected changes are frustrating, and we are working hard to keep customers moving wherever possible.”
McGraw said “this is a precautionary software update and does not present an immediate safety risk to our flights”.
Airbus said in a statement it had ordered the software upgrade after a recent incident involving an A320 family aircraft had revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.
“Airbus has worked proactively with the aviation authorities to request immediate precautionary action from operators via an Alert Operators Transmission (AOT) in order to implement the available software and/or hardware protection, and ensure the fleet is safe to fly,” a spokesperson said.
The company acknowledged these “recommendations” would result in disruptions to passengers and apologised for the inconvenience caused.