Airbus issues major A320 recall, threatening global flight disruption

PARIS - 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. ---More...

JUST IN: THE SUN JUST GROUNDED HALF THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR AIRCRAFT

6,500 Airbus A320s. Grounded. Effective immediately.

Not terrorism. Not mechanical failure. Not human error.

Solar radiation.

The same star that sustains all life on Earth just exposed a fatal flaw in the… pic.twitter.com/Y4EnkKpxMN

— Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ (@shanaka86)November 29, 2025

THE SUN JUST GROUNDED HALF THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR AIRCRAFT

6,500 Airbus A320s. Grounded. Effective immediately.

Not terrorism. Not mechanical failure. Not human error.

Solar radiation.