Europe’s Airbus said on Friday it was ordering immediate repairs to 6,000 of its widely used A320 family of jets in a sweeping recall affecting more than half the global fleet, threatening upheaval during the busiest travel weekend of the year in the United States and disruption worldwide.
The setback appears to be among the largest recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most delivered model. At the time Airbus issued its bulletin to the plane’s more than 350 operators, some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air.
The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software and is relatively simple, but must be carried out before the planes can fly again, other than repositioning to repair centres, according to the bulletin to airlines seen by Reuters.
Advertisement
Airlines from the United States to South America, Europe, India and New Zealand warned the repairs could potentially cause flight delays or cancellations.
The world’s largest A320 operator, American Airlines , said some 340 of its 480 A320 aircraft would need the fix. It said it mostly expected these to be completed by Saturday with about two hours required for each plane.
Advertisement
Other airlines said they would take planes briefly out of service to do the repairs, including Germany’s Lufthansa, India’s IndiGo and UK-based easyJet.