But the group, which makes military equipment and rockets as well as the Airbus airliners, stood by its full-year forecast for operating profit, saying that profits usually surged in the last quarter.

And it reported a strong order book, partly because of a doubling of nine-month orders for Airbus airliners, although the number of airliners delivered had fallen by 20 partly because of the SARS health scare.

Airbus said it expected to make these sales up in the last three months of

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company is the second-biggest group of its type after Boeing although it ranks eight as a defence group.

It said that in the first nine months it had made a net loss of 124 million euros (143.84 million dollars) from a profit of 23 million euros in the same period of last year.

But it stood by a forecast that profit before interest and tax for 2003 would be about 1.4 billion euros, and that sales would be at about the figure for 2002 of 29.90 billion euros.

EADS said it was counting on a "strong performance" in the last quarter and still expected to sell 300 Airbus airliners in the whole year.

SPACE.WIRE