JOBS in South Gloucestershire could be at risk if Airbus does not find the money needed to bail out its military aeroplane project.

Bosses at the aerospace company have this week admitted that a deficit in its A400M project needs to be resolved by the end of the month.

Airbus employs 4,000 workers at its Filton factory, 1,000 of whom work on the company’s A400M project making the wings and composite parts for the planes.

A further 100 Rolls-Royce workers are involved in making the engines.

The A400M was designed several years ago to replace the ageing Hercules plane promising to drop larger and heavier loads and more paratroopers from both high and low altitudes.

Kirsty Tucker, spokesman for Airbus, said: "With the A400M programme we need the customer governments from France, Germany, Spain and the UK, who helped initiate the programme, to renegotiate the original contract."

Tom Enders, chief executive of Airbus, admitted that the contracts originally signed for the programme were wrong and had created a cost deficit.

The original contracts, which were signed by seven countries, gave a fixed price of £20 billion for the military plane.

Ms Tucker said: "We need the governments to help with this burden. The company is loosing 150 million euros a month and Airbus is not willing to continue that.

"We need to know by the end of the month because we can’t continue to lose that kind of money."

Last August business secretary Lord Mandelson visited the Filton factory and announced £340 million worth of investment in Airbus and its commercial A350 extra wide body aircraft project.

The investment promised to create up to 500 jobs in Filton and also benefit other companies including GKN, Rolls-Royce and BEA Systems.