Thousands of Jetstar passengers have been held up in airport chaos and 90 flights have been cancelled after safety fears grounded Airbus A320s across the globe.
Airbus has ordered an emergency upgrade to some of its A320 fleet, due to concerns that solar radiation could corrupt flight controls.
On Saturday, Jetstar engineers were working to install a software patch to fix an issue which was discovered following an in-flight incident in North America earlier this year.
Jetstar chief pilot Tyrone Simes said the airline had been given a directive by Airbus to reverse a software upgrade and the issue was affecting 34 of the 85 A320s in its fleet.
By Saturday afternoon, a Jetstar spokeswoman said 20 of the 34 aircraft were “ready to return to service”.
“We’re expecting the remaining to be ready overnight, allowing flights to resume as planned on Sunday November 23,” the spokeswoman said.
“However, there may be some flow on delays or cancellations on Sunday as the network fully recovers. We will contact customers by SMS and email if there are any further disruptions.
“Safety is our number one priority, and we sincerely thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we worked through this issue.”
To correct the problem, the engineering team must physically change the software status of the plane and carry out flight control checks.
The update takes an estimated two to three hours to carry out.
Asked about the number of customers who will be affected, Mr Simes said: “It will certainly be into the thousands … we’ve got about 90 flights affected.
“It’s important to note that it’s a worldwide issue.”
He said it was hoped that all upgrades could be carried out on Saturday, but further minor disruptions were expected on Sunday.
Jetstar said it had cancelled approximately 90 flights across its network, and a number of others had been delayed.
As of Saturday afternoon, there were 23 domestic and international Jetstar flights out of Sydney Airport which had been cancelled, and a further 14 out of Melbourne.
Jetstar flights out of Brisbane, Perth and Hobart had also been cancelled.
The disruption at Melbourne Airport was compounded by a backlog of passengers whose flights were cancelled on Friday night after a fire at the Qantas terminal.
On Saturday morning, Jetstar said some of its flights would be delayed or cancelled as a security precaution.
“Safety is our number one priority,” the company said in a statement.
“Our teams are working on options to get customers on their way as quickly as possible and are contacting affected customers directly.
“We thank customers for their understanding and patience.”
It is understood no Qantas flights have been impacted.
A Virgin Australia spokesperson said the airline did not anticipate being impacted by the software issue.
The airline has four A320s in its regional fleet based in Western Australia.
It is understood the airline has the capacity in the rest of its fleet to cover any flights the A320 were scheduled to have flown.
The recall is expected to affect more than half of Airbus’ global fleet and the company said the issue was affecting a significant number of A320s globally.
“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,” Airbus said in a statement.
“Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in-service which may be impacted.”
The issue was triggered by an incident on a JetBlue flight from Cancun to New Jersey on October 30.
The flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida after a drop in altitude.
Steve Zemek
