Airbus | Pakistan

A specially modified Airbus A350 plane touched down in France on Tuesday after a record 24-hour test flight from Australia, ahead of its joining Qantas’s fleet next year. Its 23,076-kilometre journey — across three continents and two oceans, and through two sunsets and two dawns — was one of the most-watched flights shown on the Flightradar24 tracking site. It was also a crucial step before Australian airline Qantas receives its first A350-1000ULR in April next year, to be followed by 11 others for services able to link Australia non-stop to destinations in the United States and Europe. The ULR in its designation stands for “ultra long distance”, a feat made possible by an additional 20,000-litre rear centre fuel tank being fitted to Airbus’s A350-1000 model. The flight from Australia to France took precisely 24 hours and 24 minutes. On its outbound flight last week, from Toulouse to Melbourne, the test aircraft flew 17,000 kilometres in 19 hours and 12 minutes. The return trip simulated a trajectory the plan...

Pakistan International Airlines remained unaffected even as global airlines scrambled on Saturday to fix a software glitch on their Airbus A320 jets after a recall by the European planemaker temporarily grounded aircraft in Asia and Europe and threatened travel in the United States during the busiest weekend of the year. The recall of 6,000 planes, covering more than half of Airbus’ global A320-family fleet, is among the broadest in its 55-year history and is a blow for the planemaker weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model. “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,” said a statement by the airlines spokesperson issued today. Meanwhile, airlines worked through the night to make fixes after Airbus issued the emergency recall to 350 operators around the world, and global regulators directed carriers to remedy the soft...

PARIS: Europe’s Airbus said on Friday it was ordering an immediate software change on a “significant number” of its best-selling A320 family of jets in a move that industry sources said would bring disruption to half the global fleet, or thousands of jets. The move must be carried out before the next routine flight, according to a separate bulletin to airlines, threatening cancellations or delays during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year in the United States and beyond. Airbus said in a statement a recent incident involving an A320-family aircraft had revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls. “Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,” it said. Industry sources said the incident that triggered the unexpected repair action involved a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, on Oct 30, in which several passengers were hurt following a sharp loss of altitude...