Airbus denies planning to ground A330/340 fleet

PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus denied on Wednesday a French newspaper report that it is considering grounding its fleet of A330 and A340 planes in the wake of last week's Atlantic plane disaster, saying they are safe to fly.

Le Figaro reported in its early Thursday edition that Airbus does not exclude the move after the Air France plane, an A330, crashed during a storm.

Responding to the report that Airbus may ground the fleet of almost 1,000 jets and order airlines to change speed sensors, Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath told Reuters: "We are not considering grounding the fleet because it is safe to operate."

The report appeared on the front page of Le Figaro's Thursday edition, which was released before publication.

The twinjet A330 and four-engine A340 come from the same family of aircraft and have many shared components. The longer-distance A340 has four engines instead of the A330's two.

There are 605 A330s and 359 A340s in operation, according to the planemaker, part of European aerospace group EADS.

These include 340 of the variant involved in last week's disaster, known as the A330-200.

French crash investigators have said the Air France jetliner sent out 24 error messages including one suggesting that its speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, were giving inconsistent readings. But they have stressed it is too early to say whether this was linked to the cause of the crash.

The sensors on the Air France plane were built by Thales which has declined to comment pending investigations.

According to Airbus, the Thales sensors are an optional alternative to the sensors in the basic design of the A330, which are made by Goodrich of the United States.

They are among many components on an aircraft for which airlines can choose between alternative suppliers.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher)