DGCA orders urgent modification on Airbus A320 aircraft

The DGCA on Saturday (November 29, 2025) barred airlines from operating certain Airbus A319, A320, and A321 aircraft until urgent software or hardware modifications mandated by an Airbus safety alert are carried out.

“This is to be ensured that no person shall operate the product which falls under the applicability of this Mandatory Modification,” the DGCA order states. The ban on flights will kick in from 5.30 a.m. on Sunday (November 30, 2025), allowing airlines to move aircraft from smaller airports to bigger ones where they have a maintenance base that will enable them to carry out the rectification action.

On Friday (November 28, 2025) evening, Airbus said a recent event involving an Airbus A320 family aircraft revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls following which it has identified a “significant number of Airbus A320 Family aircraft” that may be impacted. This would entail either a software or a hardware modification for nearly 6,000 aircraft worldwide to ensure the fleet is safe to fly.

IndiGo is the biggest operator of Airbus A320 family of aircraft with over 350 such aircraft in a total fleet of nearly 415 aircraft. Air India has 127 Airbus A320 family aircraft, and its low-cost arm has a mix of Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft. Akasa and SpiceJet operate only Boeing 737 aircraft. However, airlines have been quick to act, IndiGo achieved the required action for 60% of its aircraft, and Air India for 40% of them.

Airlines say software updates are being carried out in between flights which takes nearly two hours. Some older aircraft that require a hardware replacement may have to be grounded. It is learnt though that not all bases have the Portable Maintenance Access Terminal, a piece of aircraft equipment used to upload software, download data, and perform maintenance on an aircraft’s various systems, which might cause further problems.

Pilots have already been informed by airlines that there will be disruption to flight duties.

“Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers. We apologise for the inconvenience caused and will work closely with operators, while keeping safety as our number one and overriding priority,” Airbus said in a statement on Friday (November 28, 2025).

The alert follows an incident aboard a Jetblue flight between Mexico and Newark on October 31 when the aircraft experienced an uncontrolled descent for approximately 4-5 seconds before the autopilot corrected the trajectory. The investigation traced the problem to a flight system called ELAC (Elevator and Aileron Computer), which sends commands from the pilot’s side-stick to elevators on the tail section of the aircraft. These in turn control the aircraft’s pitch or nose angle.