LONDON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - European shares steadied onThursday after rising for the past seven sessions, with gains inairlines stocks offset by weaker miners and a slump in Britishengineering group Cobham following a poor update.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was little changedin percentage terms at 371.34 points by 0821 GMT after recentstrong gains to a two-month high in the previous session.
Cobham slumped more than 21 percent to its lowest since late2004 and headed for its biggest-ever daily fall. The companysaid it would take a 150 million pound ($187 million) charge onits work on Boeing's troubled KC-46 tanker programme anddowngraded its likely 2016 trading profit again.
European miners fell 0.9 percent, the biggestsectoral decliners, tracking weaker metals prices.
However, losses were offset by a rally in airline stocksafter Air France-KLM reported better than expectedoperating profit for 2016 and said it had made a "resilient"start to 2017.
Shares in International Consolidates Airlines Groupand Lufthansa rose 2.2 and 2.4 percent higherrespectively to feature among top risers on the STOXX 600.
IT services group Capgemini was up 3.3 percentafter saying that it was targeting higher earnings in 2017. (Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Toby Chopra)