Colombia announced that 98% of the air operations suspended last Friday have been restored, following an alert from Airbus that triggered the preventive grounding of flights operated with aircraft from the Airbus A320 family. As a safety precaution while a flaw in the control software was corrected, the country is now reporting a significant recovery just three days later.
According to authorities, by this Tuesday domestic air operations will be almost entirely back to normal, pending final adjustments on some aircraft. At the same time, international flight cancellations dropped dramatically: Only four flights have been cancelled for today, compared with the dozens affected in recent days.
The decision to suspend flights, adopted jointly by the Civil Aviation Authority and the airlines involved, stemmed from a global alert issued by Airbus after a failure was detected in the system controlling elevators and ailerons, caused by ionizing radiation interfering with the A320 software.
What initially seemed like a major setback for air connectivity turned into a frantic round of maintenance and updates, with a technical deployment aimed at minimizing the impact on millions of travelers.
Colombia to restore 98% of air operations today
From the moment the alert became known, the Colombian government, airlines, and the Civil Aviation Authority launched a joint operation to update the affected fleet. Authorized Airbus workshops and specialized teams took part in the effort, a coordination that allowed rapid progress.
By Dec. 1, 106 aircraft had already been updated, and nine more were expected to complete the procedure shortly afterward, leaving only six pending. With those figures, coverage would reach 115 of the 124 units initially involved.
“We have worked day and night for Colombia to recover its air operations. To passengers we say that tomorrow the country will be back to normal in more than 98% of its flights, and by Wednesday we will have the entire fleet fully operational. This is a rapid, responsible, and coordinated response to protect the mobility of millions of travelers,” said the Minister of Transport, Maria Fernanda Rojas, at the conclusion of a Unified Command Post meeting.
This swift action not only facilitated the resumption of most domestic flights, it also allowed airlines to reopen ticket sales for flights operating as of Dec. 5, reducing the uncertainty for travelers who had been rebooked or left without transportation options.
La operación aérea del país entra en fase de normalización. Hoy ya son 106 aeronaves actualizadas y mañana serán 115 de 124, permitiendo que el 98% de los vuelos nacionales se reacomoden el mismo día. Seguimos trabajando sin pausa por la movilidad de millones de pasajeros. 🇨🇴✈️ pic.twitter.com/Gs7g1KYlfw
— MinTransporte (@MinTransporteCo) December 1, 2025
Software updates in record time
The origin of the crisis lies in an incident that occurred on Oct. 30 on a flight operated by another airline, which exposed an unnoticed autopilot command. A subsequent investigation determined that the problem was not mechanical but digital: Solar radiation was triggering data corruption in the flight control computers of the A320s. That revelation forced extreme measures: No aircraft would operate without the corresponding update.
The president of the country’s civil pilots association defended the decision, explaining that although the situation caused “disruptions” in operations, it was essential to ensure safety. In his words, returning a fleet with known failures to air traffic would have been irresponsible. The collective effort — pilots, technicians, authorities, and airlines — was key to safeguarding that standard.
The normalization of 98% of flights brings relief to those whose travel plans had been disrupted, as well as to the country’s tourism and transportation sectors, especially in a month when Christmas festivities increase travel. In the short term, the recovery of domestic air service reduces prolonged delays and improves internal connectivity.