'BAE head says Airbus will take years to make good profits'

PARIS: The European airliner manufacturer Airbus will take years to return to reasonable profitability, the head of British aerospace group BAE Systems, Mike Turner, told the Le Figaro newspaper here on Thursday.

And asked about his company's decision to sell its interest of 20 percent in Airbus to the European aerospace group EADS, which some critics say was made at a low price, Turner said he was "satisfied" with the sale. He said: "You might as well ask me what would have been our position today if we had not yet sold? Given that the dollar has lost value against the euro, that Boeing is making a comeback and, in my view, it will take Airbus years to return to an acceptable level of profitability."

Airbus, hard hit by the effects of the fall of the dollar, made an operating loss of 881 million euros (1.4 billion dollars) last year after a loss of 572 million euros in 2006. On Tuesday, Airbus, which books most of its costs in euros but sells in dollars, raised the catalogue prices of its aircraft. BAE Systems, by contrast, "generates half of its business in the United States where its investments and costs are in dollars," Turner said.

"However, we suffer a slight negative effect when we convert profits made in dollars into pounds sterling in our accounts." Turner said that BAE Systems intended to continue making acquisitions in the United States where it had bought 14 companies in the last eight years.

The company also intended to develop partnerships in India which would become its "seventh domestic market" and wanted to invest in South Korea and in Japan. But BAE Systems was "not interested in China nor Russia at the moment," Turner said.