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Air France has received the recommendation from Airbus concerning the replacement of two Thales probes by Goodrich probes on its long-haul A330/A340 aircraft. The technical instructions for the replacement of these probes will be available this week, after which Air France will proceed to modify its fleet of A330s and A340s.
As for medium-haul A320 aircraft, the incidents noted since 2001 primarily concerned disparities which occurred in the lower levels of the atmosphere, due to water ingress during heavy rain. The replacement campaign of Thales AA probes by BA probes took place as of 2007 and these have proved to be a significant improvement. Furthermore, icing incidents are rare in medium-haul operations, whereas they occurred on long-haul aircraft in 2008. Consequently Airbus does not recommend changing the probes on the A320 fleet.
Today the Air France fleet is entirely equipped with Thales BA probes.
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