Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Thousands of Airbus aircraft had to be grounded for maintenance after it was discovered that intense solar radiation could have corrupted onboard flight control software.
“The issue is limited to roughly 6,000 planes in the A320 family – the company’s best-selling aircraft.
“While this sounds bad on the face of it, the fix for the most part is relatively simple – just install an older version of the software.
“This process takes around 2-3 hours per aircraft, and Airbus has already confirmed that the vast majority of aircraft have now received the necessary modifications.
“For some older aircraft, around 900 planes, the fix will require a hardware change before they can fly again, which could take several weeks due to limited supplies.
“This is likely to bring additional costs for either Airbus or Thales, as the latter was responsible for developing the affected software.
“It’s not yet clear who will have to foot the bill when all is said and done, but in a worst-case scenario, the impact is expected to be limited to a few tens of millions of euros.
“Airbus shares fell two per cent this morning, and investors would do well to look through this noise.
“The financial impact is easily tolerable for Airbus should it have to cover the costs, and with such a strong market position and demand outlook, Airbus remains an attractive investment opportunity.”
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