European aerospace group EADS said on Tuesday its board had appointed Fabrice Bregier, 45, as chief operating officer at troubled commercial aircraft subsidiary Airbus.
Delays in the Airbus A380 superjumbo have forced EADS to examine changes to the way it produces large commercial jets, including an overhaul of Airbus management.
Bregier is currently head of Eurocopter, another EADS unit, where he will be succeeded by Lutz Bertling, 44.
EADS added that the group's chief financial officer, Hans Peter Ring, 55, would also become Airbus CFO. EADS co-Chief Executive Louis Gallois has already been appointed Airbus CEO.
Ring will become Airbus chief financial officer on January 1. Andreas Sperl, 59, the current CFO of Airbus, will move to another operational function within the EADS Group.
EADS said its board had decided that EADS CEOs Tom Enders and Louis Gallois will regularly report on all major projects, programs and matters of importance -- including Airbus -- to the two EADS chairmen, Manfred Bischoff and Arnaud Lagardere, to better prepare board discussions and decisions.
The company, which has dual headquarters in Munich and Paris, added that this did not change the joint responsibility of the two chief executive officers for all EADS businesses or the powers of the board.
"These changes in the management structure are further steps to improve the corporate governance and increase efficiency within the group", said Bischoff and Lagardere in a statement.
Enders and Gallois will have a meeting on Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. German government sources have said the government is studying a solution where DaimlerChrysler unit Dasa could issue a bond tied to a 7.5 percent stake in EADS, allowing commercial banks and public bodies to enter a consortium holding these shares.
Berlin is concerned that founding EADS shareholder DaimlerChrysler could reduce its stake in the Airbus parent, diminishing German influence in the company just as it gets set to push through substantial cost cuts.
The French government has expressed its full support to Gallois but is also concerned about possible job cuts at Airbus and its suppliers.
Gallois was on a trip to China with French President Jacques Chirac last week where Airbus sold 150 of its A320 planes.
Gallois was appointed on October 9 to head Airbus after Christiaan Streiff resigned after just 100 days in the post.
He had become CEO at EADS only in July, leaving his job as head of the SNCF railways, after Noel Forgeard's resignation.
Gallois said Toulouse-based Airbus needed to cut costs to become more competitive in the face of a lower dollar and aims to cut duplication in the structure of the company, which was created out of a four-nation consortium.
He has said the cost cuts are urgently needed to allow for the launch of another new plane -- the long-range A350.
EADS on October 13 bought back a 20 percent stake in itself from BAE Systems for EUR2.75 billion euros (USD$3.5 billion). EADS had 2005 sales of EUR34.2 billion (USD$43.6 billion) and employed a workforce of about 113,000.
