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(Sharecast News) - Shares in aerospace giant Airbus fell sharply on Monday after the company reportedly discovered an industrial quality issue regarding dozens of A320-family aircraft just two days after a software fix had to be implemented on thousands of the same planes.
The flaw, apparently affecting fuselage panels, was delaying some deliveries but there were no immediate indications that it had reached aircraft in service, the Reuters news service reported, citing unnamed sources.
Paris-listed shares of Airbus fell by as much as 10% on the news.
The latest report comes after Airbus said the vast majority of the roughly 6,000 A320-family aircraft impacted by a software glitch over the weekend had now received the necessary modifications.
Airbus discovered the issue after a JetBlue Airways plane flying between the US and Mexico suddenly lost altitude and emergency landed in October. At least 15 people were injured in the incident.
The firm later identified a problem with the aircraft's computing software which calculates a plane's elevation, and found that at high altitudes, data could be corrupted by intense radiation released periodically by the Sun.
Friday evening's warning sent airlines around the world scrambling to ground the planes and make the computer changes in an attempt to avoid schedule disruption over the weekend.
Air France flights in and out of Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport were delayed or cancelled, while in the US, American Airlines said it expected "operational delays" but added that the vast majority of updates would be carried out by Saturday. Rival Delta Airlines said it believed the impact on its operations would be limited.
Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said airlines operating in the country worked through Friday night to carry out the update and air traffic had not been seriously affected.
"Out of a total number of around 6,000 aircraft potentially impacted, the vast majority 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," Airbus said in a statement.
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
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