Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s aviation sector moved quickly over the weekend to contain disruption after Airbus ordered an urgent worldwide recall of 6,000 A320-family aircraft on Friday, prompting flight cancellations and delays across global carriers, including Saudia, Flynas, and Flyadeal.
The recall follows a serious incident in the United States on Oct. 30, when a JetBlue A320 flying from Mexico to New Jersey suffered a sudden flight-control malfunction, forcing an emergency diversion to Tampa and injuring several passengers.
Airbus is expected to issue an Emergency Airworthiness Directive as part of its precautionary measures.
By Saturday, two of Saudi Arabia’s affected airlines confirmed they had completed the mandatory software and technical updates.
Flyadeal was the first to announce full compliance, saying all required fixes had been implemented and that affected passengers had been contacted for rebooking and support.
“We expect our flight operations to return to normal by midnight on 29 November 2025,” the airline said, noting additional flights were deployed on high-demand routes. Flyadeal thanked passengers for their patience and commended its staff for working overnight to ensure a safe return to normal operations.
Flynas said it completed updates on 20 of its 68 affected aircraft “within a record time and without any impact on operational performance.”
The airline stressed that its schedule had remained intact throughout the process, with “no delays resulting from these updates,” and praised its teams for maintaining high efficiency while upholding safety and security standards.
As global regulators prepare further guidance, Saudi carriers appear to have contained the worst of the disruption. With updates now finalized, both Flynas and Flyadeal say regular operations are resuming and passengers can expect services to normalize imminently.
Aviation analyst and former pilot John Nance said the symptoms reported during the JetBlue incident suggested a potential autopilot issue.
“When an aircraft at altitude suddenly lurches and the crew reports flight-control abnormalities, it raises the possibility that the autopilot had reached the limit of maintaining the airplane in a certain configuration and disconnected,” he said.
