Airbus finds quality issues on A320 panels that need inspection

Airbus SE said it’s identified a quality issue on some metal panels in the fuselage of its A320 airliners, compounding a crisis with its most popular product after already flagging a software glitch on about 6,000 jets on Friday.

“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,” the company said in a statement, responding to a report by Reuters earlier on Monday that first identified the issue.

The planemaker said the source of the issue has been identified and contained, and that newly produced panels conform to all requirements. Still, it’s unclear how the additional inspections may impact Airbus’s tight delivery schedule of aircraft for the year, and how many planes are affected by the measure.

Airbus shares fell as much as 11% in Paris trading, the worst intraday drop since April 7. The A320 is the company’s by far most popular product. On Friday, Airbus called for an urgent software revision on more than half its active A320 family fleet after an incident uncovered possible corruption of flight controls because of solar radiation.

By Monday morning, Airbus said the vast majority of the affected planes had been fixed.