The grounding of the world’s best-selling single-aisle aircraft, the Airbus A320 family, this weekend for software upgrade will have a direct impact on air travel across the world including India. More than 350 A320 family aircraft of IndiGo and Air India Group in India will be affected for 23 days. After the completion of the upgrade, flights are expected to return to normal from next Monday or Tuesday. Around 6,000 aircraft globally will go through this process.
Reason for upgrade: Serious technical incident on JetBlue’s A320 flight
On October 30, 2025, JetBlue’s A320 flight from Cancún to Newark suddenly nosed down without pilot input. According to the NTSB investigation, this uncontrolled “pitch down” occurred during a switch change in the ELAC flight control computer. The plane had to be diverted to Tampa in an emergency and some passengers were hospitalized. After this incident, Airbus has issued instructions for mandatory software/hardware updates on the entire A320 fleet.
Air India advisory
Air India said in its official post that following the instructions issued by Airbus, software/hardware realignment will be done in some aircraft of our A320 fleet, which may increase the turnaround time and possible delays in flights. We regret the inconvenience caused to passengers until this reset is completed on all aircraft. Passengers have been advised to check the flight status before going to the airport and contact the contact center if necessary.
Air India tweets, “We are aware of a directive from Airbus related to its A320 family aircraft currently in-service across airline operators. This will result in a software/hardware realignment on a part of our fleet, leading to longer turnaround time and delays to our scheduled pic.twitter.com/drkc9JPLcF
— ANI (@ANI) November 29, 2025
Indigo’s statement
Indigo said that safety first. Airbus has issued technical advisory for the global A320 fleet. We are doing all the mandatory updates with utmost care and as per security protocols. There may be slight changes in the schedule of some flights during this period. Indigo has requested passengers to check the latest flight status on the app/website before going to the airport.
IndiGo tweets, “Airbus has issued a technical advisory for the global A320 fleet. We are proactively completing the mandated updates on our aircraft with full diligence and care, in line with all safety protocols. While we work through these precautionary updates, some flights pic.twitter.com/XciHvXGMFn
— ANI (@ANI) November 29, 2025
impact on passengers
There is a possibility of delay and schedule change in air travel in the next 23 days. It has had the biggest impact on India’s largest fleet (IndiGo + Air India). Globally, 6,000 aircraft will undergo upgrade. Aviation regulators and airlines have said that this entire process is necessary to strengthen security.