EADS Shares Fall Sharply on Disturbing Management Comments

Posted 05 October 2006 @ 02:21 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

PARIS (AP) - Shares of European aerospace group EADS fell sharply for the second day on comments from top officials that called into question the future of two key Airbus programs.

EADS was showing a loss of 2.76 percent at 21.11 euros in early trading on an overall market that was down 0.55 percent.

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space company posted a loss of 4.15 percent on Wednesday after it announced new delays to the delivery of the A380 superjumbo, leaving the program nearly two years behind schedule, and an expected operating loss of 4.8 billion euros (6.0 billion dollars) between now and 2010.

In comments appearing in the Financial Times on Thursday, Airbus chief executive Christian Streiff warned that Airbus may need 15 years to overtake US rival Boeing and said a project to develop the A400M milutary transport plane was also under pressure.

In the same article the co-chief executive of EADS, Thomas Enders, hinted that another key Airbus venture, the A350, could also be disrupted in light of the problems at EADS.