A worldwide malfunction in Honeywell GPS receivers hit Embraer E195-E2 aircraft on 22-23 September, leading Brazilian carrier Azul to cancel 34 flights at Belo Horizonte’s Confins Airport (CNF). According to concessionaire BH Airport, 30 services—15 departures and 15 arrivals—were scrubbed on Tuesday, with four more dropped early Wednesday before operations normalised. The glitch affected navigation systems needed for high-precision approaches, prompting Azul to ground the affected fleet until software patches were verified. Passengers were reprotected under ANAC’s Resolution 400, receiving meals, hotel rooms and ground transport where required. Duty-free operators and airport retailers reported a 12 % dip in footfall during the outage, while rival carriers Gol and Latam maintained schedules by swapping aircraft types. Although limited to one airport, the episode is a reminder of the cascading impact avionics failures can have on corporate itineraries. Travel managers should ensure traveller profiles contain multiple contact channels so airlines can deliver disruption notices quickly—especially once ANAC’s new real-time update mandate takes effect. Azul says it is cooperating with Honeywell and ANAC to prevent recurrences, and that the incident will not affect its third-quarter capacity guidance. Nevertheless, companies with sizeable traffic through CNF may want contingency agreements with alternative carriers or consider remote-work protocols when critical staff are stranded.
Source: Estado de Minas
