One of the busiest travel weekends of the year doesn’t seem like an ideal time to update more than half of the world’s over 11,000 A320s. Still, a potential issue involving solar flares was serious enough that the company pushed the software update Friday. American Airlines said that 340 of its planes required the update, which it expected to take about two hours each. According to Reuters:
... that comes at a time when airline repair shops are already overrun by maintenance work, as hundreds of Airbus jets have been grounded due to long waiting times for separate engine repairs or inspections. The industry also has labour shortages. “The timing is definitely not ideal for an issue like this to arise on one of the most ubiquitous aircraft around the (U.S.) holidays,” Mike Stengel of AeroDynamic Advisory said.
