PARIS – This week, Airbus got a brutal reminder that even the world’s most-delivered jet — the A320 — isn’t immune to shocks as disparate as solar flares and flawed metal.
Days after recalling 6,000 A320-series planes over a software glitch linked to cosmic radiation, the European giant was forced to slash delivery targets when defects surfaced in some of their fuselage panels.
The twin setbacks — one rooted in astrophysics, the other in basic metallurgy — underscore how fragile success can be for a planemaker that dominates the busiest corner of aviation and is on track to outpace Boeing for a seventh straight year.
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