European Aerospace giant Airbus said Monday it had detected a "quality issue" affecting metal panels on its popular A320 passenger jet but the problem was "contained." The report of the new problem adds to the software update problem that was detected a few days ago.
"Airbus confirms it has identified a supplier quality issue affecting a limited number of A320 metal panels," a spokeswoman for the company told Agence France-Presse, confirming earlier media reports.
"Airbus is taking a conservative approach and is inspecting all aircraft potentially impacted – knowing that only a portion of them will need further action to be taken," she added. "The source of the issue has been identified, contained and all newly produced panels conform to all requirements."
Shares in Airbus earlier fell more than 10% on Monday in Paris following media reports that quality problems with fuselage panels had delayed delivery of some of its A320 aircraft.
The company said it’s taking a conservative approach and inspecting all planes that could potentially be affected by the problem, “knowing that only a portion of them will need further action to be taken.”
Airbus sources parts and components from thousands of outside suppliers. The suspected production flaw is delaying some deliveries but there are no immediate indications that it has reached aircraft in service, as per sources.
The reports of the new problem came after a separate incident in which Airbus last week said some 6,000 of its A320 planes should not fly again until a software upgrade was made following an incident in the United States.
The announcement initially raised concerns that hundreds of planes would need to be grounded for long periods, but Airbus said Monday that fewer than 100 planes remained immobilised.
On October 30, a JetBlue-operated A320 aircraft encountered an in-flight control issue due to a computer malfunction apparently caused by solar radiation affecting the equipment.
Travelers had faced minor disruptions heading into the weekend as airlines around the world scrambled to push the software updates out to the widely used commercial jetliner. Airbus warned of the problem Friday with U.S. millions of passengers in transit for the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel time in the United States.
The European planemaker said in its update that the “vast majority” of the short-haul passenger jets in service “have now received the necessary modifications.”
“We are working with our airline customers to support the modification of less than 100 remaining aircraft to ensure they can be returned to service,” Toulouse, France-based Airbus said.
“Airbus apologises for any challenges and delays caused to passengers and airlines by this event,” it said.
Airbus said it discovered that “intense solar radiation” could corrupt data that’s critical to the functioning of flight controls.
The computer’s manufacturer, France’s Thales, said that the computer complies with Airbus specifications, and the functionality in question is supported by software that is not under Thales’s responsibility.
The problem is suspected of contributing to a sudden drop in altitude of a JetBlue plane from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey on Oct. 30, that injured at least 15 passengers, some of them transported to hospitals for medical care.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency required airlines to address the issue with the software update. More than 500 U.S.-registered aircraft were impacted, including jets flown by American Airlines and Delta.
Japan’s All Nippon Airways, Air India and Germany’s Lufthansa were also affected. The Airbus A320 family of single-aisle aircraft is the primary competitor to Boeing’s 737.
The setback appears to be among the largest mass recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model.
Produced since 1988, the A320 is the world's best-selling aeroplane. Airbus sold 12,257 of the aircraft by the end of September compared with the sale of 12,254 Boeing 737s.
Airbus delivered 72 aircraft in November, fewer than many analysts had previously expected and bringing the total for the year so far to 657.
Airbus aims “around 820” deliveries for the year, meaning it would have to reach a record performance of more than 160 jets in December. The record for the final month of the year was 138 in 2019.
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