Cost cuts, voters cramp Airbus style at air show

LE BOURGET, France, June 18 (Reuters) Loss-making Airbus, whose sales increasingly depend on low-cost airlines, tightened its own belt on Monday by unveiling a host of major air show deals in cramped quarters infiltrated by noise and jet fumes.

With big sums spent on keeping up appearances at the world's largest aerospace jamborees, which alternate between Le Bourget outside Paris and Farnborough in Britain, Airbus and Boeing usually vie for status on the ground as well as in orders.

But after a cash crisis provoked by production delays on its flagship A380 superjumbo, parent EADS ordered Airbus to scrap one of the group's two purpose-built press centres and share precious space with other business units at Paris this year.

The cutbacks left commercial airplane executives unusually jockeying with arms and space experts from the same company, echoing the European firm's halting steps towards integration.

Airbus and several prestige customers struggled to announce big-ticket orders above the din of aerobatic fighter displays.

''Does anyone want to try shouting a question,'' pleaded Airbus sales chief John Leahy, during a signing ceremony with U.S. financing firm GECAS, one of the world's largest buyers.

In a further blow to its air show plans, former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe was forced to pull out of a meeting of ministers who oversee Airbus activities in the four European countries in which it builds aircraft after a shock poll defeat.

Juppe, awarded a powerful portfolio including responsibility for Airbus in a government under new President Nicolas Sarkozy, unexpectedly lost his seat in parliamentary elections on Sunday.

The involvement of the second-ranking government figure after Prime Minister Francois Fillon had been seen as a further sign of growing French government activism in EADS, which is grappling with 10,000 Airbus job cuts and rising doubts over the durability of a Franco-German shareholder pact.

EADS is the world's second largest aerospace and defence company after Boeing, its only rival in large airliners.

Despite the cutbacks, EADS won a hands-down victory on day one of the air and arms bazaar with over billion of orders.

From its own base in the temporary aerospace village lining Le Bourget's runway, Boeing looked set to hit back on Tuesday with a widely-reported billion order for 50 of its 787 Dreamliner jets from ILFC, the world's largest aircraft leasing company.

Reuters SI DB2301