Airbus’ fleet of A380s has been beleaguered by problems with cracks in their wings since January. Now, the company has announced that all A380s could all be grounded for up to eight weeks in order to repair the problems.
The BBC reports that Airbus went on record to explain that if it grounds all the planes at once for repair, they’ll be out of action for around two months. However, there is still a chance that the repairs will be made step by step, with each plane taking a longer break during regular maintenance checks in the coming months.
The fix requires 23 wing ribs currently made of type-7449 aluminium to be replaced with thicker ones made of a more robust type-7010 aluminium. In total, the repairs will present 30,000 hours of labour.
So far, Airbus has spent $US300 million on the problem. Ironically, that figure looks set to rise and rise — unlike the planes. [BBC]
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