The new head of European plane maker Airbus said on Tuesday the group's structure needed to be simplified and decisions would be made in the next few months that could lead to job losses among its 55,000 staff, according to Reuters. Uncertainty over the future shape of the group intensified after Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying he was in favour of Russia raising its stake in Airbus parent EADS , though he said on a trip to Germany there were no hostile plans. EADS co-Chief Executive Louis Gallois took over as head of Airbus late on Monday when Christian Streiff resigned after just 100 days in the post. A company spokeswoman said a report on the website of La Tribune financial newspaper saying some 10,000 jobs would go as part of a restructuring was "premature". But before leaving to meet managers at the Toulouse headquarters of Airbus, Gallois told Europe 1 radio in Paris: "It will be painful, yes, because there will be job cuts." "We have to ask questions about the sites, the assembly lines, in order to rationalise it," Gallois added. "We cannot live with two sites that each share all the assembly lines." But he said nothing had yet been decided and that there were "several months of study before us before taking decisions". Airbus has assembly lines in Toulouse in France and Hamburg in Germany and a total of 16 sites. Putin, who wants to boost cooperation in the aerospace industry between Europe and Russia, was quoted in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper as saying he was in favour of Russia increasing its 5 percent stake in EADS but not at any cost, adding that the firm had structural deficiencies. "Some of our specialists are against this while others say it would boost our competitiveness," Putin told the paper when asked about increasing the stake. "I personally am for this, but a final decision has not been made," he added in the article, due to appear on Wednesday. But the Russian president told reporters at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden on Tuesday that Russia had no plans for a hostile takeover. One of France's most influential business leaders, Claude Bebear, the founder of insurer Axa, also said on Tuesday that EADS had fundamental flaws in its structure. "The whole business was badly conceived from the beginning. There is no company which can operate effectively when it is run by a duo. EADS has a system which can't work -- I'm surprised it lasted as long as it has," Bebear told Reuters in an interview. EADS has two co-CEOs, one French and one German, but has been rife with Franco-German tensions since its debut. But Bebear said Gallois had the diplomatic skills to see through painful restructuring. Gallois said combining his EADS co-CEO role with that of Airbus CEO already meant a simplification of the structure. Rating agency Fitch on Tuesday said the latest management changes highlighted corporate governance issues that were "inherent weaknesses" within EADS. It cut EADS's debt ratings. Gallois formerly ran France's Aerospatiale, one of the groups that merged to become the multinational European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co (EADS) in 2000 and a leading force behind Airbus. Before joining EADS three months ago, Gallois led French railways group SNCF. He said the A380 superjumbo, a double-decker plane for more than 550 passengers that has now been delayed by two years due to problems with its wiring and is at the centre of the woes facing the company, remained a great aircraft. "If we have a problem with the wiring, it is because Airbus is not yet a fully integrated company, and now we have to meld it together ... We have no longer a choice," he said. The French CGT union called on Gallois to reassure staff and "not the shareholders as his predecessor wanted". "The Franco-German parity is an excellent thing, an engine that could easily break down if you tamper with the equilibrium," CGT's Xavier Petrachi said. In Spain, unions were seeking talks with Spanish holding company Sepi, which has a 5.48 percent stake in EADS. German trade unions had no immediate comment. French Finance Minister Thierry Breton told parliament that the state would not sell its 15 percent stake in EADS. Gallois said Airbus's main problem was the low dollar, which has fallen 41 percent since the launch of the A380. The aircraft are sold in dollars, but Airbus produces in the euro zone. He said he hoped the EADS board would give its go-ahead for the planned A350 mid-size passenger plane in the next few weeks to compete with Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner in a market segment that makes up 40 percent of the total. EADS shares rose 3.6 percent to close at 20.89 euros, after dropping over 36 percent so far this year.
