Airbus Enters Last Weeks of the Year Facing a Cosmic Distraction

As Airbus SE enters the last month of the year trying to meet an ambitious aircraft delivery target, the European planemaker finds itself confronted with a fresh challenge that’s come out of the blue.

The company surprised airlines and travelers alike late Friday with a call for “precautionary fleet action” on its A320 aircraft, the most widely flown commercial airliner in history. An Airbus software update left flight controls vulnerable to cosmic radiation, requiring an urgent code fix, four weeks after an in-flight mishap first brought the issue to light.

The statement set off a frantic rush among carriers operating the A320 to address the flaw, with more than 6,000 jets requiring the fix before their next regular flight. And the timing was hardly ideal: US travelers, in particular, were in the middle of their mass Thanksgiving migration, with authorities expecting record activity.

From New Zealand to India to Latin America, operators of the popular A320 family raced to eradicate the bug or face the risk grounding of an aircraft that carries millions of travelers on any given day.

The episode highlights how central the A320 has become to fleets in every corner of the world and how an opaque celestial occurrence can throw the finely tuned system into disarray. Left unanswered is exactly how solar radiation could fry sophisticated onboard systems, and Airbus made only a vague reference to a “recent event” that exposed the problem in the first place.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-30/airbus-enters-last-weeks-of-the-year-facing-a-cosmic-distraction?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2NDUzMDI0NSwiZXhwIjoxNzY1MTM1MDQ1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNko2U0xLSzNOWTgwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDNjgyQTUwQzJCRDM0MTFCQTgwQjEwQjZEQjczQzM1MSJ9.S9xnpdvfPkmQf9mi4GOqM1p-qW7qskAZDsrxtUtVLZo

Satellite manufacturers and operators have had to deal with RAM Single Event Upsets ("bit flips" ) for decades now. Sensitive electronics are especially vulnerable around the South Atlantic Anomaly region, I'm presuming the hardware/software upgrade may prioritize A320 aircraft flying between South America and other destinations.