Overview
- About 6,000 A320‑family jets were flagged for inspection and a software rollback or update before their next flight under emergency guidance from EASA.
- Most aircraft returned to service within hours via a cockpit‑applied software change, though a smaller subset will need hardware replacement that could extend groundings.
- Operational impacts were largely contained: ANA canceled 65 flights, Air France cut 35, American updated 209 aircraft with minor delays, and Lufthansa and easyJet reported little disruption.
- Avianca said roughly 70% of its fleet was affected, warned of significant delays for about 10 days, and paused ticket sales through December 8.
- The actions follow a late‑October JetBlue incident involving an abrupt altitude loss; investigators say solar or cosmic particles can corrupt data in an ELAC flight‑control computer, and Thales says the implicated function is on software it does not provide.