Sydney, Melbourne airports affected by global recall of Airbus planes

A worldwide recall of Airbus planes has triggered delays at Australian airports, after the aerospace giant flagged a software glitch overnight.

Sydney and Melbourne Airports confirmed that Jetstar’s fleet of A320 planes is affected by the outage, resulting in delays to some of the budget carrier’s services operating from both airports.

In a statement early on Saturday morning, Jetstar confirmed “some of our Airbus-operated flights are unable to depart at this stage. We’re working through the impacts to our fleet and customers. We’ll have more shortly”.

Sydney Airport said it was “supporting Jetstar as they work to resolve the issue and strongly advise all Jetstar customers to check their flight status with the airline before travelling to the airport”.

Cebu Pacific, which flies from Sydney and Melbourne to the Philippines, is also affected by the Airbus order.

“Our operations and engineering teams are working diligently to complete the updates as quickly and efficiently as possible,” the airline posted on X. “We have also deployed additional airport staff to assist passengers.”

Cebu Pacific urges passengers travelling within the next 48 hours to check their flight’s status on the website “before heading to the airport”.

Earlier, Airbus released a statement saying “a recent event involving an A320 Family aircraft has revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls”.

It did not elaborate on what this incident was, but Airbus said it subsequently identified “a significant number” of its aircraft which may be affected.