BERLIN - China will soon be threatening major Western aircraft makers, Boeing boss James McNerney said in a forthcoming interview.

Boeing chairman James McNerney talks with the press in May 2006. China will soon be threatening major Western aircraft makers, McNerney said in a forthcoming interview. [AFP]

Warning that it was wrong to think that there would only ever be Boeing and Airbus in competition, McNerney was quoted in the German weekly Der Spiegel as saying, "The Chinese have well-trained people, a strong spirit of enterprise and an enormous domestic market."

McNerney said the US manufacturer had learned its lesson after failing to heed the threat from its European rival. "We were market leaders and we went to sleep, instead of staying wide awake," he added.

Asked about Airbus's current problems, stemming in part from difficulties with its giant A380 airliner, McNerney said the two companies had different views of where the market lay.

"We believe the future is with smaller aircraft capable of flying long distances between medium-sized cities, rather than in the development of large hubs" favoured by Airbus, he said.

But McNerney added that the A380 was "a marvellous airplane, very exciting from a technological view," Der Spiegel said.