Funding for the planned Airbus A400M military transport plane is completely secure and will not be affected by problems surrounding the company's flagship A380 airliner, an official said on Thursday.

Airbus says nine countries have placed orders for a total of 192 A400Ms. The aircraft is due to receive its full certification in 2009.

Richard Thompson, a senior vice-president at the military wing of Airbus, dismissed the idea that the A400M program could be jeopardized by delivery delays with the A380 superjumbo airliner.

"On the military side, the program is fully funded in Europe by the European governments... So there is absolutely no question of resources not being available, funding not being available, funding being transferred from one area to another to allay a crisis situation," he told a news conference.

"We could not come forward with an excuse saying, 'Oh well, we have a crisis situation with the commercial side of the organization and therefore, sorry, we can't deliver your military airplane'. The two things are separate."

Thompson said there were far fewer variants of the A400M than the A380, which meant the transporter would not be affected by engineering delays.

"The industrial ramp-up that is planned for the A400M is far more conservative than for the A380 program and therefore we do not foresee any similar type of problems for the A400M program," he said.

EADS will see a slight financial impact this year from problems related to the A380 airliner, a company official told the news conference.

EADS said earlier this week that this year's earnings would not be affected. But Herve Garnier, senior international vice-president for Northern Europe and Canada, said there would be some impact.

"The financial results this year for the EADS group will only be very slightly affected by these events," he said.