Islamabad, November 29,2025: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) remained unaffected on Saturday as airlines across Asia, Europe and the United States scrambled to address a major software glitch in Airbus A320 aircraft, following an unprecedented recall by the European aerospace giant.
The recall — covering 6,000 aircraft, more than half of Airbus’ global A320-family fleet — is among the largest in the company’s 55-year history. It comes just weeks after the A320 surpassed the Boeing 737 as the world’s most-delivered commercial jet.
In a statement, a PIA spokesperson confirmed that the airline’s entire A320 fleet had escaped the issue.
“PIA has confirmed that its entire A320 fleet is not affected by this Airbus alert. PIA’s Engineering and Maintenance department is closely monitoring their fleet’s airworthiness, ensuring safe operations,” the spokesperson said.
Airlines worldwide worked through the night after Airbus issued the emergency directive to 350 operators, requiring immediate software repairs before aircraft could resume flights. Aviation regulators instructed carriers to complete the remedy — a relatively simple software rollback — as quickly as possible.
The quick response helped avert widespread disruption, limiting delays in Asia and Europe during early Saturday travel peaks. The United States was expected to face heavier pressure later in the day as post-Thanksgiving travel surged.
“It’s not as chaotic as some people might think,” said independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie. “But it does create some short-term headaches for operations.”
Industry sources said Airbus had informed airlines that the burden of repairs may be lighter than initially feared, with fewer aircraft likely to need hardware changes.
Despite this, executives noted the abrupt recall comes at a difficult time for the aviation sector, which is already grappling with global labour shortages and supply-chain constraints affecting maintenance operations.
