[Source: Reuters]

Europe’s Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab 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.

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 (AAL.O), opens new tab, 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.

Other airlines said they would take planes briefly out of service to do the repairs, including Germany’s Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), opens new tab, India’s IndiGo and UK-based easyJet (EZJ.L), opens new tab.

Colombian carrier Avianca said the recall affected more than 70% of its fleet, prompting it to close ticket sales for travel dates through December 8.

There are around 11,300 A320-family jets in operation, including 6,440 of the core A320 model, which first flew in 1987.

Four of the world’s 10 biggest A320-family operators are major U.S. airlines: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), opens new tab, JetBlue (JBLU.O), opens new tab and United Airlines. Chinese, European and Indian carriers are also among the jet’s biggest customers.
For about two-thirds of the affected jets, the recall will result in a brief grounding as airlines revert to a previous software version, industry sources said.

Still, that comes at a time when airline repair shops are already overrun by maintenance work, as hundreds of Airbus jets have been grounded due to long waiting times for separate engine repairs or inspections. The industry also has labour shortages.

“The timing is definitely not ideal for an issue like this to arise on one of the most ubiquitous aircraft around the (U.S.) holidays,” Mike Stengel of AeroDynamic Advisory said.

But due to the quick repair time, many jets can be fixed between scheduled flights or during overnight checks, he added.

Britain’s easyJet said it had already completed the work.

A senior airline industry source, however, said sequencing the repairs at a time when demand is high and fleets are already facing maintenance delays was expected to be a major challenge.

Aviation analyst Rob Morris said there were questions over how much hangar capacity would immediately be available.

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