The Federal Aviation Administration has asked for new, stricter maintenance limits on 156 Airbus A330 airplanes on the U.S. registry, and the public has until November 23, 2026, to respond. The proposal, a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking published on October 7, targets the failure of system components that could reduce how well a pilot can control the jet.
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Operators of the wide-body twin would have to rewrite parts of their maintenance programs if the rule is finalized. The change widens an earlier proposal and replaces a stack of older directives with a single, more restrictive set of requirements.
The FAA’s supplemental A330 proposal
The notice, filed in the Federal Register as document 2026-20543, says it “would affect 156 airplanes of U.S. registry.” It applies to A330-200, A330-300, A330-800 and A330-900 family variants, passenger and freighter alike, with original airworthiness certificates issued on or before December 19, 2025. The agency signed the notice on October 5, and it appeared on page 64121 of volume 91 of the Federal Register two days later under project identifier MCAI-2025-00316-T and regulation identifier number 2120-AA64. The FAA is issuing it, in the agency’s words, “to address the failure of system components,” which could reduce the airplane’s controllability.
If adopted, the final rule would supersede three existing airworthiness directives: AD 2014-16-22, AD 2017-25-13 and AD 2024-25-11. The first two cover A330 and A340 models, and the third covers the A330-200, -200F, -300, -800 and -900. Folding them together means operators would track one directive instead of three when planning inspections and component checks. The retained actions from AD 2024-25-11 reference EASA AD 2024-0014, dated January 10, 2024, so operators keep complying with that European text while adding the newer limits.
EASA’s limits behind the American rule
The substance comes from Europe. The FAA proposes to require operators to revise their maintenance or inspection programs to add new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s AD 2026-0059. According to EASA’s posting of that directive, it was issued on March 19, 2026, took effect on April 2, 2026, and requires compliance with Airbus A330 Airworthiness Limitation Section Part 4, System Equipment Maintenance Requirements, Revision 11, dated December 19, 2025. It also supersedes EASA AD 2025-0057.
The American proposal adds its own wrinkles. It sets FAA-specific exceptions to the European text, including a 90-day deadline to revise the maintenance program, and it limits alternative actions and intervals unless the agency approves them. Operators can still request an alternative method of compliance, but the agency has to approve it. The published text frames the hazard in general terms, the failure of system components, and leaves the specific tasks and intervals inside the EASA directive and the Airbus document it incorporates, so operators will need to read all three together.
From 145 airplanes in February to 156 now
This is the second time the A330 has been through the rulemaking process. The FAA first floated the idea in a notice of proposed rulemaking published on February 25, 2026, which rested on EASA AD 2025-0057 and would have affected about 145 airplanes on the U.S. registry. Its comment window closed on April 13, 2026. The only comment received, from the pilots’ union ALPA, supported the proposal without change.
The new notice reopens the comment period because the revisions to the original proposal are substantial. Anyone who commented on the February version, or who skipped it, gets a fresh chance to weigh in on the broader text before the agency decides whether to adopt it as a final rule. It references later service information containing new or more restrictive limitations, and it expands applicability to airframes certificated through December 19, 2025, compared with the earlier cutoff of October 1, 2024. That wider net is the reason the count of affected U.S. airplanes rises from about 145 to 156.
The A340 also shows up in the paperwork. The FAA added several A340 models to its required airworthiness action list so that any operator importing one onto the U.S. registry would have to comply with EASA AD 2024-0015. No A340s are currently registered in the United States, so the practical burden falls entirely on A330 operators.
Cost and how to comment
The agency’s cost estimate is modest. It figures that the retained actions from the 2024 directive take about 90 work-hours at $85 an hour, or roughly $7,650 per operator, and it uses the same number for the new maintenance-program revision. The estimate covers the program revision itself, which is the only cost the notice quantifies.
Comments on docket FAA-2026-1338 can be filed through the Regulations.gov docket, and the FAA says it “must receive comments on this SNPRM by November 23, 2026.” Frank Carreras, an aviation safety engineer with the agency, is listed as the technical contact. Travelers are not asked to take any action in the notice; the FAA describes airworthiness directives as legally enforceable rules issued under 14 CFR part 39 to address an unsafe condition in aircraft or their parts.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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