Europe's Airbus said on Friday it had issued a major recall for 6,000 of its A320 jets – one of the largest in the company's history – just as the busy Thanksgiving travel season kicks off in the United States, causing widespread disruption.

The recall impacts more than half of the global A320 fleet, threatening delays and cancellations both in the U.S. and internationally during one of the year's busiest travel weekends. The issue, stemming from a software problem affecting the plane's flight control system, requires airlines to revert to an older version of the software before the jets can fly again.

Some 3,000 A320-family jets were already in the air when the bulletin was issued, prompting warnings of potential disruptions from airlines across the U.S., Europe, South America, India and New Zealand.

American Airlines, the world's largest A320 operator, said some 340 of its 480 A320 aircraft would need the fix. It expects most of 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 perform the repairs, including Germany's Lufthansa, India's IndiGo and UK-based easyJet. Colombian carrier Avianca said the recall affected more than 70 percent of its fleet, prompting it to close ticket sales for travel dates through December 8.

While the fix is relatively simple, involving a reversion to earlier software, it must be carried out before the planes can fly again, aside from repositioning to repair centers, according to the bulletin to airlines. This added pressure to already overloaded maintenance shops in an industry struggling with labor shortages.

Airbus said in a statement that a recent incident had revealed that solar flares may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.

Industry sources said the recall was triggered by an incident involving a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, on October 30, where a sharp altitude loss caused by a flight control failure injured several passengers.

The abrupt recall sent ripples around the world.

Temporary groundings for repairs could be much longer for some airlines, as more than 1,000 of the affected jets may also require hardware replacement, industry sources said.

Air France said it was canceling 35 flights, 5 percent of the airline's daily total. Mexico's Volaris said it could face delays or cancellations for up to 72 hours. Air New Zealand warned of a number of cancellations.

(With input from Reuters)