Airbus

Airbus

Airbus is Europe’s largest aerospace manufacturer and one of two companies, with Boeing, that dominate large commercial aircraft. It is registered as Airbus SE in the Netherlands with its main operations centred on Toulouse, and runs three divisions: Commercial Aircraft, Helicopters, and Defence and Space.

Defence and Space is the division relevant to FlightBrief. It covers military aircraft including the A400M transport and A330 MRTT tanker, combat aircraft work through the Eurofighter and the Future Combat Air System programme, satellites and launchers, and uncrewed systems.

Uncrewed Systems

Airbus is developing Wingman, an uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft intended to fly alongside crewed fighters and take on higher-risk tasks. It is Europe’s principal answer to the loyal-wingman concept the US is pursuing through the Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme, and it feeds into the longer-term Future Combat Air System.

Business and Financial Position

Defence and Space reported revenue of €9.3 billion for the first half of 2026, up sharply from €5.1 billion in the same period a year earlier, with Q1 2026 revenue of €2.8 billion representing 7 percent year-on-year growth. Within the division, Air Power accounts for roughly 63 percent of revenue, Space Systems 21 percent, and Connected Intelligence and other activities 16 percent. Cumulative A330 MRTT orders have reached 91 aircraft.

Why It Matters

Airbus is the institutional anchor of European defense aerospace, and the surge in its Defence and Space revenue tracks the wider European rearmament that followed 2022. For the drone sector specifically, Airbus matters less as a builder of small systems than as the integrator that decides how uncrewed aircraft fit into European air power. Wingman and FCAS will shape what European forces field in the 2030s, and which suppliers get pulled into those programmes.