Airbus, new A320 panel problems and the stock plummets on the stock exchange
Losses of up to 11% during the session: the stock recovers on clarifications from the Toulouse-based group that had to deal with the software alert
by Mara Monti
Problems never come alone, and after having quickly upgraded the on-board software on 6,000 aircraft in the Airbus 320 family, yesterday morning the Toulouse-based global giant was faced with a new complication, this time related to fuselage panels requiring inspection. A quality problem in the metal panels produced by one of its subcontractors for the A320: 'The incident has been 'identified and contained', said the company, which is 'inspecting all potentially affected aircraft, while knowing that 'only a portion of them will have to undergo additional measures'.
Stock market crash
On the stock market, the reaction was immediate and the share lost as much as 11% before recovering to reduce the loss to 5% as word came from Toulouse that the vast majority of the 6,000 aircraft affected by the update of the software that regulates the Elevator Aileron Computer (Elac), the system that controls the in-flight stability of the ailerons, had received the necessary modifications. "Less than 100 aircraft remain to be modified," probably the oldest type for which it is necessary not only to update, but to change the software.
The positive note is that the feared catastrophe in the skies with thousands of cancelled flights did not occur due to the promptness of the night action between Friday and Saturday, carried out by the airlines' technicians before the Emergency Airworthiness Directive of Easa, the European Aviation Authority, came into force at midnight on 29 November. To give an example, the low-cost company Wizz Air, which has a fleet of 250 aircraft all from the Airbus family, 'updated the software of 85 aircraft without suffering cancellations', the company specified in a note.
The impact of upgrades more in Asia than in Europe
The upgrade was immediately necessary as 'a potential vulnerability of the ELACs to exposure to solar flares was identified, which could lead to uncontrolled movement of the elevators'.
At the Italian airports, where there is an intense presence of Airbus 320s in the hands of the low cost airlines easyJet and Wizz Air, the inconveniences were limited to a few minutes of delay, as in the other European airports from London to Paris to Frankfurt. Heavier was the impact in Asia where, due to the time difference, the airlines received the alert on the morning of Saturday 29, when the directive of the respective flight safety agencies came into force: Air New Zealand grounded its A320s while All Nippon Airways in Japan cancelled 95 flights impacting 13,200 passengers. The Indian airline IndiGo, which has a massive fleet of A320s, stated that checks on 160 of the 200 affected aircraft took place without cancellations. In the US, major airlines American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said the A320 software problem had no impact.
