The airline Air France canceled 35 flights this Friday evening following communication from Airbus, which announced the recall of some 6,000 A320 planes, the best-selling plane in the world, Le Parisien learned.
The French company’s flight schedule, up to date for this Friday, November 28, is not yet up to date for Saturday. Air France tells us that customers affected by the cancellations will be informed individually by SMS and e-mail.
For its part, easyJet, which claims to have studied Airbus communication, tells us it is preparing for “disruptions” without giving further details. “We are currently working closely with safety authorities and Airbus to implement the necessary actions,” the budget airline said.
“We will inform our customers directly of any changes to our flight schedule tomorrow and will do everything possible to limit the impact,” easyJet said.
Contacted by AFP, American Airlines expects “some delays” linked to these adjustments. Its American rival United Airlines assured not to be “affected” by this defect, without further details, although it owns several A320s.
“Stop immediately”
Earlier in the evening, Airbus announced the recall of some 6,000 A320 planes, to urgently replace control software vulnerable to solar radiation after an incident at the end of October in the United States.
The group announced in a press release that it had asked all customers using this software to “immediately stop thefts” after analyzing the technical incident. Analysis of the incident “revealed that intense solar radiation could corrupt data essential to the operation of flight controls,” the European group reported.
For most aircraft, changing software to its previous version will take “a few hours”. But for some 1,000 planes this will involve changing the computer hardware, “which will take weeks,” a source close to the matter explained to AFP.
Airbus acknowledged “that these recommendations will result in operational disruptions for passengers and customers”.