Jetstar flights resume after grounding due to global Airbus issue

The majority of Jetstar services across Australia have resumed on Sunday after a global issue led to the grounding of Airbus A320 planes yesterday.

On Saturday, thousands of passengers were impacted by the disruption – mostly on the east coast – with flight cancellations at all major domestic airports.

Jetstar said it had 86 of the A320 aircraft in its fleet, and 34 were affected by the software issue.

Qantas and Virgin also have A320s in their fleets, but the carriers said services were not disrupted.

'Flow-on delays' possible

Jetstar said on Saturday it was "progressively resolving" the software issue, and by the evening, had fixed all but six affected aircraft.

The issue required engineers to reverse a software upgrade that was carried out on Airbus A320 aircraft, in a process that could take up to three hours for each plane.

It is understood the required Airbus update has now been applied to all of those affected aircraft.

On Saturday, a spokesperson for Jetstar said there could be "flow-on delays or cancellations" on Sunday as the network "fully recovers".

Jetstar said the airline had helped impacted passengers by providing vouchers for meals, transport and overnight accommodation.

Some regional airports, such as Newcastle and Ballina-Byron, also experienced flight delays and cancellations due to the software issue on Saturday.

A spokesperson for Adelaide Airport said two Jetstar flights – one to Sydney and one to Melbourne – had been cancelled on Sunday.

Melbourne Airport said it was not aware of any cancelled flights on Sunday due to the issue, and there were no impacts at either Brisbane or Sydney Airport.