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Airbus SE
0KVV · AIMX · Aerospace & Defense · Netherlands
Airbus SE is a European aerospace corporation and Europe's largest aeronautics and space company. Its primary business focuses on the design, manufacture, and delivery of commercial aircraft, including jet passenger planes, freighters, and regional turboprops, alongside aircraft components and conversion services. The company operates through three key segments: Airbus for commercial aviation, Airbus Helicopters as the world's leading helicopter manufacturer for civil and military use, and Airbus Defence and Space, which develops military air systems, UAVs, space systems for telecommunications and earth observation, missiles, and launchers. Originating from a 1970 consortium of European firms to rival American airliners, Airbus SE emerged from mergers and rebrandings, with EADS adopting the name in 2017; it maintains assembly plants across France, Germany, Spain, the UK, and beyond, headquartered legally in Leiden, Netherlands, and operationally in Blagnac, France. Airbus SE plays a pivotal role in global aerospace, driving innovations in sustainable aviation, fuel-efficient aircraft, and connected technologies that support commercial connectivity, defense, and space exploration.
Industry
Aerospace & Defense
Industrials sector · Netherlands
Stories
Structural patterns identified in Airbus SE
Coordination
Supply Chain
Aerospace Supply Chain
The aerospace supply chain is governed by three root constraints that interact to produce extreme concentration, decades-long supplier lock-in, and a system where every component must be traceable from raw material to flight: certification requirements make every part a regulated article, product lifecycles measured in decades force suppliers to support platforms long after production ends, and integration complexity across millions of parts from thousands of suppliers creates coordination demands that few organizations can manage.
Defense Supply Chain
The defense supply chain is governed by three root constraints that interact to produce extreme supplier concentration, glacial production timelines, and a system where political decisions — not market demand — determine what gets built and how much: monopsony buyer structure means the government is typically the only customer, security classification requirements restrict who can manufacture, supply, and even know what is being produced, and production rate inflexibility means defense manufacturing runs at low volumes with specialized tooling where surge capacity barely exists because maintaining idle lines for contingencies has no commercial justification.