LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The chief executive of Rolls-Royce said on Wednesday his mission to lift the British company's profits was compatible with continuing to gain market share and delivering improvements in engines demanded by airlines.
Tufan Erginbilgic was drafted in to Rolls-Royce last January to turn around Britain's flagship engineering company, and investors like what they have seen, with the shares rising more than 200% this year.
But his challenge is to convince airlines after a public row with Emirates, one of the world's biggest, whose president told Rolls last month to "go back to basics" and pay attention to improving the durability of its products before raising prices.
"We are going to transform Rolls-Royce with customers, not against customers," Erginbilgic told Reuters.
Emirates has said the time between repairs of Rolls' XWB-97 engine in hot and dusty conditions must improve before it will buy A350-1000s, raising questions over the impact on Airbus for which Rolls is the sole supplier of engines for wide-body jets.
Long-standing customer Thai Airways is finalising an order for 80 Boeing 787s powered by competitor GE after disagreements over pricing with Rolls, industry sources have told Reuters.
The move, which is intertwined with a defeat for the Airbus A350, follows a disagreement over whether Rolls could raise prices for engines on previously acquired 787s, in the event the airline added GE to its all-Rolls wide-body fleet, they said.
None of the parties have agreed to comment.
But Erginbilgic said in an interview on Wednesday that orders continued to flow despite recent criticisms.
"There is one deal, which is very important and big," he said. "We've made the deal. It is not announced yet."
Some analysts have voiced concerns about the impact of efforts to improve prices on Rolls' market share, even though the size of the market is growing overall. Competitivity is driven partly by the number of engines built relative to rivals.
Erginbilgic rejected this.
"Our delivery market share is around 55% and that will continue for the next 5-10 years, so we are gaining market share every year including this year".
(Reporting by Paul Sandle, Sarah Young, Tim Hepher; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)