Eight firms led by Airbus will form Team Gen 6 in Berlin, offering an alternative to the failed FCAS programme.
BERLIN: A new consortium that hopes to build a next-generation fighter jet as an alternative to the failed European project FCAS will be launched Thursday in Berlin, Airbus confirmed to AFP.
The eight-company alliance, dubbed “Team Gen 6” and led by Airbus, will provide further information about the potential project at an official signing ceremony at the ILA air show in Berlin, the aerospace giant told AFP.
The project would replace the troubled Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme, which was abandoned on Monday by Berlin and Paris after months of tension between the two main manufacturers, Airbus and France’s Dassault.
The eight companies have already sent a position paper to Germany’s defence minister outlining their vision for a sixth-generation aircraft project, Airbus said.
The consortium calls on the German government to ensure “a complete and timely awarding of contracts by the second half of 2026”, according to the paper obtained by AFP.
According to another source among the companies involved, the agreement is expected to be signed privately by the companies as early as Wednesday.
The “Team Gen 6” project would be largely a German-led project.
In addition to Airbus, the alliance includes the European missile manufacturer MBDA and six German firms: Hensoldt, Diehl Defence, MTU Aero Engines, Liebherr, Autoflug and Rohde & Schwarz.
The position paper from the firms to German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius emphasises the need for Germany’s defence industry to innovate, especially in the wake of the FCAS programme’s collapse.
Pistorius told reporters on Tuesday that the eight-company project “is conceivable and one possibility”, but added that Germany is also weighing other options such as purchasing more American F-35 fighter jets or joining other ongoing aircraft development projects.
Pistorius said that talks with various “stakeholders” on the subject have been ongoing for months.
Long-simmering problems with the FCAS project came to a head in the summer of 2025, as Dassault made an aggressive push to take greater control of the programme.
That rankled politicians in Berlin and executives at Airbus.
FCAS, launched in 2017 and joined by Spain in 2019, had been considered a flagship project of European defence cooperation — and its apparent demise has been seen by many as a setback for efforts to rebuild European military power to deter a hostile Russia.
