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.
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.
Numerous airlines from the US to South America, Europe and India said late yesterday the repairs could potentially cause flight delays or cancellations.
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 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.
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.
Colombian carrier Avianca said the recall affected more than 70% of its fleet, seen at around 100 jets, causing significant disruption over the next 10 days and prompting the airline to close ticket sales for travel dates through Dec 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 US airlines: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue 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 theoretically 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 faces labour shortages.
Sequencing the repairs at a time when demand is high and fleets are already facing maintenance delays is expected to be a major challenge, a senior airline industry source told Reuters.
Aviation analyst Rob Morris said the move raised questions over how much hangar capacity would be immediately available.
