Airbus share prices falls on report of quality issue on A320 aircraft

Shares of the European aerospace giant airbus The stock fell as much as 10% on Monday after reports the company has discovered an industrial quality issue with dozens of A320-family planes.

Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported that the fault, which affected the plane’s fuselage panels, was delaying some deliveries, but there was no immediate indication that it had reached aircraft in service.

In response, Airbus confirmed that it had identified a quality issue regarding a “limited number” of A320 metal panels, and said that the source of the problem “has been identified and addressed.” CNBC has contacted Airbus for comment.

Paris-listed shares of Airbus fell to the bottom of the pan-European Stocks 600 index following the news. The stock was last seen 5.3% lower at 2:22 p.m. London time (9:22 a.m. ET), trimming losses from earlier in the session.

The latest report comes after Airbus said the majority of the nearly 6,000 A320-family planes affected by the software glitch over the weekend have now received the required fixes.

In a statement published on Monday, Airbus apologized for the delays caused to passengers and airlines affected by the software problem, which affected more than half the narrow-body fleet and forced airlines to ground jets during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

The directive – one of the largest in Airbus’s 55-year history – quickly spread to American holiday travel and extended to Australia. Disruption linked to solar flares hit Asia particularly hard, where the single-aisle A320 family operates short-haul networks.

American Airlines And delta air linesBoth of which were affected by the Airbus recalls, trading 2.5% lower and 1.5% lower, respectively.

Meanwhile, shares of the French aerospace and defense firm ThalesThe company, which supplies flight systems software to Airbus, was last seen dropping 2% in prices.

— CNBC’s Victor Loh contributed to this report.