The announcement ofAirbusOn the evening of Friday 28th, the decision to ground A320 aircraft in order to update software caused a certain amount of anxiety among the airlines, which were obliged to bring their aircraft back to base and carry out the mandatory updates. But what could have turned into a nightmare turned out to be less catastrophic than expected. The updates were automatic in many cases, limiting aircraft downtime. For example, cancellations at Air France only affected around thirty flights on Friday evening. On Saturday, the airline announced a return to normal operations, 12 hours earlier than forecast.
A faster than expected return to normal in Europe
In Germany, Lufthansa reported a limited wave of cancellations and delays. The group began to apply the measures dictated by Airbus in the evening, and the majority of updates were able to be carried out on Friday night and again on Saturday morning, according to a spokesman. " No flights are due to be cancelled by any of the Lufthansa Group airlines as a result of this situation, but occasional delays this weekend cannot be completely ruled out. "he said.
At easyJet and Wizz Air, two major A320 users, cancellations were minimal. The two carriers are talking about an extremely limited impact of just a few dozen flights.
South America and Asia more exposed
Outside Europe, Asia and South America will have been the most affected by the A320 grounding. Indian carrier Indigo has indicated that a large proportion of its 195 A320s needed updating. The AirAsia group said it would take 48 hours to return to normal operations. Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet said they had completed the updates on Sunday.
Conversely, North America appears to be the region least affected by the A320 problems. American Airlines - which operates the largest A320 fleet in the world, with 480 aircraft - processed a large proportion of the updates overnight. On Saturday, 209 aircraft were still affected, but the group expects to update most of its fleet in the wake of this, also overnight. For their part, Air Canada and Delta Air Lines have assured us that their customers' flights will be only marginally affected by this software operation. The former because it has recently built aircraft, the latter because it has very few models in its fleet.
On the other hand, things are more complicated for South American airlines. Avianca has indicated that it will have to mobilise 70% from its short-haul fleet. In the wake of this, the Colombian carrier has suspended all ticket sales until 8 December, in order to absorb all the passengers affected by the grounding of the A320s. At LatamThe subsidiaries in Colombia, Chile and Peru are experiencing delays rather than cancellations. Latam Brazil has not suffered any damage.
