Airbus announces a “quality problem” on A320s, three days after the grounding of 6,000 planes

This time the problem concerns metal panels produced by one of its subcontractors for its successful single-aisle aircraft.

Troubles are piling up for the world’s best-selling civilian commercial aircraft. Airbus announced on Monday December 1 that it had met with “quality problems” in metal panels produced by one of its subcontractors for its successful A320 single-aisle aircraft, claiming that this incident had been “identified” And “circumscribed”.

Concated by franceinfo, Airbus confirms having identified a quality problem with a supplier, “affecting a limited number” of A320 metal panels, confirming press information which caused the company’s price to plummet on the Paris Stock Exchange. “As always when faced with quality issues in its supply chain, Airbus is taking a cautious approach and inspecting all potentially affected devices, knowing that only a portion of them will require additional measures (…) all newly produced panels now comply with requirements”explains the aircraft manufacturer, who assures that the source of the problem has been identified and controlled.

The aircraft manufacturer had already announced on Friday the immobilization of some 6,000 A320 planes to urgently replace software vulnerable to solar radiation. Airbus, which had urged its customers to “stop the flights immediately” on the aircraft concerned, was however able to quickly intervene on thousands of aircraft on Friday and Saturday, alleviating fears of large-scale disruptions to global air traffic. On Monday morning, Airbus said fewer than 100 A320 family aircraft remained grounded and it was working with airlines “to ensure that they can be returned to service”.