Top executives at aerospace group EADS will see their bonuses hit after the cost debacle surrounding the delayed A400M military transport aircraft, but staff will mostly be spared, its top personnel executive said on Thursday.

Airbus parent EADS last week announced 1.8 billion euros ($2.44 billion) in charges for its share of a government-funded rescue package for the military transport plane project, pushing it into loss at both the operating profit and net income level in 2009.

The provisions brought its total cumulative losses on the 20 billion euro European project to 4.2 billion euros.

Quite a few people lost their bonuses in this matter, Human Resources head Jussi Itavuori told a news conference.

The only significance of this is that EADS 2009 result is negative. And quite a few of us lost their bonuses. We have taken a personal hit from this.

Operating profit is among indicators that collectively make up a scale for setting bonuses at Europe's top aerospace group.

We, the executive board, take the responsibility for it as a whole. It affects our results fully, Itavouri told Reuters.

When speaking about the staff as a whole ... we will neutralize it (the effects) to a quite far extent.

Unions want the company to say how compensation for ordinary staff will be affected by the A400M losses, saying factory workers should not be penalized for problems which the company has mostly blamed on political interference or poor decisions.

Itavouri said EADS did not see a need to push through more job cuts as a result of either A400M losses or the decision of a U.S. partner to pull out of a contest to supply aerial tankers.

The future of the (A400M) program is secured, financing is solved, Itavouri said.

(The tanker deal loss) is not the kind of matter that would cause direct effects in our industrial organization or staff. Its effect is more that we will not create jobs in the U.S.

(Reporting by Eva Lamppu; Editing by Rupert Winchester)

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