(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

UAE carrier Air Arabia on Saturday said it is“working to ensure minimal impact” of the recall of Airbus A320 aircraft.

The global aircraft manufacturer on Friday ordered an immediate software change on its A320 family. The update is likely to involve some 6,000 passenger aircraft around the world.

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“We confirm that we have received the directive issued by Airbus concerning the A320 aircraft type operated by airlines worldwide, which requires a number of aircraft to undergo specific software and technical updates,” said an Air Arabia spokesperson in a statement to Khaleej Times.

In line with this advisory, we have begun implementing the required measures across the impacted aircraft in our fleet and expect to complete all updates by the end of today. Our teams have worked diligently to ensure minimal impact on our customers throughout this process,” it said.

“We regret any inconvenience this may cause some of our customers, as we remain fully committed to ensuring the highest safety standards,” said the Sharjah-based budget carrier.

UAE airlines operate 106 aircraft of the Airbus A320 family, which was recalled by the European aircraft manufacturer, according to data shared by Cirium.

Data showed that Air Arabia and Air Arabia Abu Dhabi have 67 A320 aircraft in service.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said its flights have returned to normal scheduled operations following the successful installation of the required Airbus software update across its A320 fleet.

“Thanks to the exceptional efforts of our operational and technical teams, the update was completed quickly and with minimal disruption; despite this being one of the busiest travel periods at Zayed International Airport ahead of the long weekend,” the airline said in a statement.

“We appreciate the professionalism of our teams across the network and thank our guests for their patience and understanding. Safety remains Etihad's highest priority, and we are pleased to have restored regular services swiftly,” said Etihad.

Cirium data showed Etihad Airways has 39 Airbus A320 family aircraft in operation. Across the Middle East, 376 aircraft of the A320 family are in operation, and 48 are in storage.

Unprecedented event

Airbus has advised all A320-family operators of a potential need to update critical flight software and possibly hardware too, in order to ensure that its airplanes are not impacted by intense solar radiation.

Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research, said this is a rather unprecedented event that hasn't ever happened before, but has been born on the back of a JetBlue A320 flight which encountered a serious flight control anomaly, causing the jet to rapidly descend, and caused injuries on board.

“Naturally, Airbus is keen to understand and remedy this issue across a possible 6,000-plus affected A320 jets. We cannot at this stage rule out, whether Airbus widebodies like the A330, A340, A350 and A380 families are affected or not,” he said.

Ahmad added that UAE and GCC airlines from Air Arabia, Saudi, flyadeal, flynas, Jazeera Airways, SalamAir, EgyptAir, Royal Jordanian, Pakistan International, Kuwait Airways and a host of other operators will definitely be affected, although Airbus has yet to publicly quantify the affected fleet(s).

“Depending on numbers, these jets simply cannot fly until either software and/or hardware updates are completed. Software updates can take a few hours to complete, but more invasive hardware changes can see jets out of service for several days as they wait for replacement parts, thus hampering schedules. Its possible customers will start to pay more attention to what airplane they could be flying on and alter bookings to avoid the A320 for the meantime,” said Ahmad.

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