LAHORE: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) remained unaffected on Saturday as airlines across Asia, Europe and the United States scrambled to address an emergency software glitch on Airbus A320 aircraft, temporarily grounding thousands of jets worldwide.
The European planemaker issued one of the broadest recalls in its history, covering 6,000 aircraft—more than half of the global A320-family fleet—after regulators ordered operators to fix the software issue before flights could resume.
“PIA has confirmed that its entire A320 fleet is not affected by this Airbus alert. PIA’s Engineering and Maintenance department is closely monitoring their fleet’s airworthiness, ensuring safe operations,” the airline’s spokesperson said in a statement.
Airlines around the world worked overnight to install software fixes, helping avert major flight disruptions in Asia and Europe.
The United States is expected to experience peak travel later today following the Thanksgiving holiday rush.
Aviation analyst Brendan Sobie said the situation, though disruptive, remained under control. “It’s not as chaotic as some people might think, but it does create some short-term headaches for operations,” he said.
Industry sources indicated that some emergency repairs may be less complex than initially feared, with a smaller number of aircraft requiring hardware changes.
Global carriers reported varied impacts. European budget airline Wizz Air said it had updated its affected A320 jets overnight with no further delays expected. AirAsia said it aimed to complete all fixes within 48 hours, while India’s regulator confirmed 338 affected aircraft, with major carriers IndiGo and Air India progressing through resets.
