The Air Carriers Association of the Philippines (ACAP) announced Saturday that technical issues affecting several Airbus aircraft models, which led to numerous domestic flight cancellations and delays, are expected to be fully resolved by Sunday.
The operational disruptions were caused by a global advisory from European planemaker Airbus, which mandated an urgent software upgrade for a significant portion of its widely used A320-family jets, including the A319 and A321 models.
According to the advisory, an investigation revealed that “intense solar radiation” has the potential to corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight-control systems.
This mandatory software change must be completed before the affected aircraft can fly again, leading airlines worldwide to temporarily ground jets for maintenance.
ACAP’s assurance comes as local carriers, including Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Cebu Pacific, scrambled to manage the fallout over the busy travel weekend.
The airlines have offered passengers flexible options, including free rebooking or refunds, for flights affected by the grounding.
The widespread alert follows a recent safety incident involving a JetBlue A320 flight on October 30, where the aircraft experienced an unexpected and uncommanded loss of altitude, reportedly injuring several passengers.
The investigation into that event led to the discovery of the software vulnerability.
Airbus acknowledged the fix would cause operational disruptions globally and apologized for the inconvenience to passengers and customers.
While the software update for most planes is estimated to take just a few hours, officials noted that a small percentage of older aircraft may require more extensive hardware upgrades.
