By Pierre Tran
Paris – The executive chairman of Dassault Aviation, Eric Trappier, called March 4 on Airbus to accept management leadership of the French industrial partner on a new European fighter jet, otherwise the project would die from lack of corporate support.
“If Airbus maintains the probability of not working with Dassault, the project is dead,” he told a press conference on Dassault 2025 financial results. “Airbus doesn’t want to work with Dassault. I take note,” he said.
A dispute over management control of the new generation fighter (NGF) project has stalled work on the European future combat air system, backed by France, Germany, and Spain. The new fighter is at the heart of FCAS, seen as a flag carrier for European cooperation, with an estimated €100 billion ($11.6 billion) price tag.
Asked if France could afford its own fighter Trappier said a new fighter program would cost less than €50 billion.
At €50 billion over, say, 15 years, that implied an annual cost of €3 billion with larger amounts in the peak period, a financial analyst said. Dassault could afford that, with its Rafale fighter generating ample funds.
France, however, would enter the “red zone” if its budget deficit exceeded 5 pct in 2026, the Bank of France governor, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, said Jan. 14, Reuters reported.
Dassault carries the mandate of French prime contractor on the fighter in FCAS, dubbed pillar one, and objects to what it sees as Airbus Defence and Space calling for a too close cooperation based on what the German partner calls “interdependency.”
A lack of consensus on the fighter led a defense analyst to refer to “coalition of the unwilling.”
There was need for an “enterprise and coalition approach” to get the European fighter project off the ground, the analyst said. If a Venn diagram were drawn on Dassault’s Neuron prototype for a combat drone, Airbus airliner business, and Airbus DS’s work on Eurofighter, there was scope for progress on the FCAS fighter project.
Airbus DS was not available for comment.
Airbus DS, based in Manching, near Munich, is the German military unit of Airbus, which builds airliners at Toulouse, southern France, and Hamburg, northern Germany.
The Manching site is where Airbus DS builds the Eurofighter Typhoon for the German Luftwaffe air force, and services Tornado fighters, A400M transport aircraft, and the Nato fleet of AWACS E3A spy planes.
Airbus DS has sought to learn more about building fighters, and saw its partnering with Dassault as a chance to gain access to privileged technical information, essentially the “know why” to understand better the “know how.”
Airbus DS works with BAE Systems and Leonardo in the Eurofighter consortium. Germany ordered in October a further 20 Typhoon, equipped with a new E-Scan electronic radar, and the Saab Arexis electronic warfare pod for the German Eurofighter fleet. That was in addition to Berlin’s 2020 order for 38 tranche 4 Typhoon to replace earlier Eurofighters.
The importance of EW self protection could be seen with the six aircrew surviving the downing of three F-15E Strike Eagles in the U.S and Israeli March 2 attack on Iran. The Kuwaiti air defense shot down the U.S. fighters in what the U.S. Central Command said was “friendly fire.”
Trappier, meanwhile, has long pointed to Dassault’s leadership in the Neuron project as the business model for the FCAS fighter project. The French company was prime contractor on the prototype for the Neuron uncrewed combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), with five industrial partners – Airbus DS, Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Leonardo, Saab, and Ruag.
The Airbus DS Spanish unit contributed to work on the wings, ground segment, and data link integration on the combat drone, Dassault said.
Meanwhile, the Airbus parent company builds the A320, A330, and A350 airliners in Toulouse, while the Hamburg site builds models derived from the A320, namely the A318, A319, and A321.
The Airbus airliner has posed a serious business challenge to Boeing, which pitches the 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner to airlines around the world. Boeing bought Spirit AeroSystems in December, reversing a 2005 sale of its aerostructures business in a bid to boost profitability.
Meanwhile, tension has risen between Dassault and Airbus, with Trappier insisting the German military air unit accept Dassault’s claim for leadership on the fighter project.
One of the issues is Dassault insisting on selection of subcontractors, while accepting the work share imposed by the funding of one third from each of the partner nations.
The Dassault top executive criticised Airbus for a Feb. 6 joint statement from the German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI) and the IG Metall, with respectively the business lobby and trade union calling for two fighters to be built in FCAS.
When it was pointed out that Airbus had not issued the statement, Trappier said the German aeronautics company was clearly a powerful member of the BDLI association.
“Industry and the union are convinced that the two-aircraft solution will pave the way for clear conditions and future prospects: this would eliminate not only the current disagreement but also planning uncertainties,” the joint statement from German business and labor said.
Germany had funds to pursue its own fighter program, the business association said.
“Combined with a robust federal budget, we are in a position to invest confidently and thus pursue bold industrial policy paths,” said Marie-Christine von Hahn, BDLI chief executive.
For the IG Metall union, there were German jobs to be gained with a two-fighter approach.
“This solution will strengthen employment along the entire value chain in Germany: from small and medium-sized enterprises to large corporations,” said Jürgen Kerner, second chairman of IG Metall.
The companies were still working on the last stages of the demonstrator phase 1B study on FCAS architecture, worth €3.2 billion. The next step, phase 2, would bring the total amount to just almost €5 billion, if the companies signed the contract.
The partners have not signed the phase 2 contract due to the dispute between Airbus and Dassault, holding up the FCAS project. That contract would fund development and building a fighter demonstrator and two combat drones, to fly in 2029/30.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Berlin did not need a fighter flying from an aircraft carrier, and carry a nuclear-tipped weapon – two requirements Paris sees as critical.
Those differing requirements implied building two fighters, thereby crashing FCAS as conceived, requiring a revised plan.
French President Emmanuel Macron, however, insists there should be one fighter.