Air India on Saturday clarified that it has not cancelled any flights following the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Airbus mandates requiring a global software and hardware update on A320 family aircraft.
Asserting that safety is the airline's top priority, it said in a statement that Air India has already completed the reset on over 40% of its aircraft and is confident of covering the entire fleet within the timeline prescribed by EASA.
"At Air India, safety is top priority. Following EASA and Airbus directives for a mandatory software and hardware realignment on A320 family aircraft worldwide, our engineers have been working round-the-clock to complete the task at the earliest. We have already completed the reset on over 40% of our aircraft that are impacted by this, and are confident of covering the entire fleet within the timeline prescribed by EASA," it said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Air India confirmed that there is no major impact on its schedule. It, however, said that some of the flights may be rescheduled due to the Airbus-mandated software fix.
"Air India can confirm that there have been no cancellations due to this task and there isn't any major impact on schedule integrity across our network. However, some of our flights may be slightly delayed or rescheduled. Our colleagues on ground are there to assist the passengers," it wrote.
The airline urged all passengers to check their flight status on the official site before heading to the airport. "We request guests to remain patient and on their part check the latest flight status at https://airindia.com/in/en/manage/flight-status.html or connect with our contact centre at 011-69329333, 011-69329999 before heading to the airport to help us reduce any inconvenience," Air India added.
Airbus-mandated safety updates
Airbus has ordered immediate repairs of thousands of aircraft globally from its A320 fleet, which is likely to affect flight disruptions globally. As per the It is estimated that around 6,000 aircrafts around the world will be impacted. The company issued the directive after an A320 incident revealed a possible “solar radiation risk” that could compromise data essential to critical flight controls.
The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software and is relatively simple, but must be carried out before the planes can fly again, other than repositioning to repair centres, according to the bulletin to airlines seen by Reuters.
Airbus, which is registered in the Netherlands but has its main headquarters in France, is one of the world's biggest airplane manufacturers, alongside Boeing.
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