Airlines across the world raced to keep their fleet operating after a major software glitch forced an urgent update for Airbus SE’s most widely flown aircraft, with the rapid response avoiding a major meltdown during a crucial holiday-travel season.

Within less than 24 hours of Airbus and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issuing an emergency directive, carriers including American Airlines Group Inc., India’s IndiGo and easyJet Plc in the U.K. — among the biggest operators of the single-aisle plane — had reverted to a previous version of the software for the bulk of their fleets, allowing them to maintain largely normal operations.

American Airlines said on Saturday its “tech ops team made strong progress as they worked through the night to address the Airbus software issue,” with just four of its 209 impacted aircraft still requiring attention.

The surprise announcement by Airbus late on Friday caught carriers and travelers off guard just as U.S. passengers prepared to return home from a record Thanksgiving travel season. The European manufacturer said more than 6,000 aircraft were impacted by the glitch — over half of the global A320 fleet — which under certain conditions risked corrupting computer data that helps maintain flight controls.

Aircraft requiring the fix need to revert to the previous version of the software, and the data upload can take as little as 2-3 hours. But as many as 1,000 older jets will need an actual hardware upgrade and will have to be grounded for the duration of the maintenance, according to people familiar with the approach who asked not to be identified while discussing non-public findings.

Carriers operating the jet had to make the fix before the aircraft’s next regular flight, putting airlines under intense pressure to act swiftly or risk significant bottlenecks.

The prescribed software fix followed almost a month after an incident involving a JetBlue Airways Corp. jetliner that was exposed to “intense solar radiation,” resulting in a software malfunction that prompted a sudden downward pitch without pilot input. Nobody was injured in the situation, but the plane diverted from its normal flight path and the incident prompted an investigation.

Airbus Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury said in a post on LinkedIn that company teams are “working around the clock to support our operators and ensure these updates are deployed as swiftly as possible to get the planes back into the sky and resume normal operations.” The European regulator mandated that upgrades must be implemented before the affected aircraft can fly again.

Airlines and travelers have already had to contend with disruptions caused by bad weather and the recent U.S. government shutdown that prompted a partial reduction in aircraft movement.

In the U.S., which is experiencing a record-breaking Thanksgiving travel period, operators of some 1,600 A320 family jets sought to implement fixes while keeping disruption to a minimum. The Federal Aviation Administration said its emergency airworthiness directive, which mirrored that of European regulators, affects approximately 545 U.S.-registered airplanes.

Besides American Airlines, Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines Inc. separately said there was no impact from the A320 software problem.

Indian carrier IndiGo, which has placed a massive order for A320 planes, said a checks on 160 of 200 aircraft affected have been completed by midday local time on Saturday, with no flight cancellations.

Some carriers were initially harder hit. Colombia’s Avianca SA said more than 70% of its fleet was impacted and that it was halting ticket sales until Dec. 8. Japan’s ANA Holdings Inc. scrapped 95 flights on Saturday, affecting roughly 13,200 passengers.

Some services were canceled in Australia and New Zealand early on Saturday, causing travel disruption as Qantas Airways Ltd. subsidiary Jetstar and Air New Zealand Ltd. grounded some of their A320s for the software upgrade.

Hungarian discount carrier Wizz Air Holdings Plc, which has an Airbus-only fleet of about 250 aircraft, said it had successfully implemented the upgrades on all affected Airbus A320 family aircraft overnight, and that flight operations are back to normal.

The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority said airlines have already carried out the software update “to the vast majority of the relevant aircraft.”

“While some disruption had been anticipated, very few U.K. airline flights are affected and passengers are experiencing minimal impacts,” the regulator said.

The A320 competes with Boeing Co.’s 737 model, and the two jetliner families are the workhorses of the civil aviation industry. Airbus has already had to absorb engine issues on its newer A320neo jets, powered by Pratt & Whitney, that have forced hundreds of jets to be taken out of service temporarily for maintenance.

On-board software is increasingly critical to stable flight in modern aircraft, though a malfunctioning system can have catastrophic consequences. Boeing suffered two crashes in rapid succession a few years ago involving its latest 737 Max aircraft after a software system called MCAS malfunctioned in flight.

The flight control computer on board the A320 is made by Thales SA of France and has been in operation for more than two decades. Thales said in a statement that the functionality that’s come under scrutiny in the wake of the JetBlue incident is supported by software that is not under its responsibility.

“Thales is fully cooperating with Airbus and the relevant authorities to help resume flight operations for the affected aircraft as quickly as possible,” the company said.

———

(With assistance from Kate Duffy, Leen Al-Rashdan, Yoshiaki Nohara and Sri Taylor.)

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.