Airbus Shares Fall After Urgent Fixes Needed on Thousands of A320 Aircraft

By Dominic Chopping

Airbus shares fell after thousands of the manufacturer's planes required urgent fixes over the weekend to allow them to fly again.

Shares were 2.4% lower in early European trade Monday.

Regulators late last week ordered the company to apply some software and hardware fixes to A320 aircraft after it was discovered that intense solar radiation had corrupted data used for flight controls on an Airbus jet operated by JetBlue Airways in October. The incident caused the Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, N.J. JetBlue flight to briefly lose altitude and forced it to make a landing in Florida.

Airbus said around 6,000 A320 aircraft needed either software or hardware fixes to resolve the issue, and by Monday morning the "vast majority" of those fixes had been completed.

Fewer than 100 aircraft still require modification work to ensure they can be returned to service, the company said.

While about 85% of affected aircraft needed a simple software fix, around 900 older aircraft need a hardware replacement to accommodate the software upgrade, analysts at RBC Capital Markets said.

The bank expects the direct impact to Airbus from the 5,100 aircraft needing the software fix is less than $250 million, but said it is unclear how the financial responsibility will fall between Airbus and Thales, which makes the affected flight-control computer.

The leading A320 operators include American Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, IndiGo, Delta, JetBlue, United, easyJet, and Air China, according to RBC.

Operators including easyJet and Wizz Air said Monday that they have completed the required software updates, while flights were able to operate throughout the weekend without any cancellations. Shares in both companies were little changed in early European trade Monday.

Delta and American Airlines both said over the weekend that any disruptions would be limited, while Germany's Lufthansa was expecting only a small number of flight cancellations or delays.

Elsewhere, Air India warned of delays and operational disruption as they made the software changes, while Australia's Jetstar canceled some domestic flights early Saturday.

Write to Dominic Chopping at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-01-25 0348ET