BAE Systems chief operating officer Mike Turner says he's "very comfortable" with the relationship between his company and EADS as partners in the Airbus integrated company.

Even as the civil aircraft manufacturing sector faces up to a dramatic economic downturn, Turner says the new process now works "far better than with the four different shareholders sitting around the table". However, he adds, both shareholders mostly leave Airbus's day-to-day activities up to chief executive Noel Forgeard's team.

Only in two areas is Airbus dependent on shareholder approval: in launching new aircraft (but after the A380, little is happening on that front), and in sales financing where clearly Airbus would be committing the balance sheets of both EADS and BAE Systems. "We're not going to allow that to happen without us being deeply involved," says Turner. "So we have a treasury committee that has to agree on every aircraft sales finance activity."

He denies any suggestion that BAE, as the minority Airbus shareholder with 20%, wields less influence than 80% shareholder EADS. "That is not our experience," says Turner. "I think it'd be very nice to have more of Airbus for BAE Systems; it's a great business. But I don't see that opportunity arising."

Apart from Airbus, BAE also partners EADS in Astrium space activities, missile interest MBDA and Eurofighter. In terms of Eurofighter's future success, Turner believes that the emphasis must be on winning export orders and on developing the fighter's air-to-ground capability. He does not, however, envisage Eurofighter's reorganisation into an integrated company, as with Airbus. And he offers no definitive answer on the future course of BAE's relationship with EADS, looking instead across the Atlantic.

While BAE is a key EADS partner, neither party denies they are competitors as well - a point made by EADS' Rainer Hertrich recently when he described BAE as "our European-based competitor".

Turner says: "The question is: Will we find ways of having a deeper relationship with EADS? What we have been doing is increasing our presence in the USA, the world's number one defence market - more importantly, the world's number one research and development defence market."

Source: Flight International