An Airbus-led alliance of eight defense companies is formally launching Team Gen 6, a German-backed sixth-generation fighter project, with a signing ceremony at the ILA Berlin air show on June 11, three days after Berlin and Paris scrapped the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
The consortium pairs Airbus Defence and Space with European missile manufacturer MBDA and six German firms, Hensoldt, Diehl Defence, MTU Aero Engines, Liebherr, Autoflug, and Rohde & Schwarz. Their position paper to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius urges Berlin to award contracts in full and on schedule by the second half of 2026, according to AFP, which reviewed the document.
“We are ready to assume responsibility,” Michael Schoellhorn, head of Airbus’s defense division, said on June 10 as Chancellor Friedrich Merz toured the air show. Schoellhorn said the group is not pushing for a purely national German program and wants domestic industry to take a leading role in a European framework.
Pistorius called the project “conceivable and one possibility” but said Berlin is also weighing additional Lockheed Martin F-35 purchases or joining an existing development program. Talks with stakeholders have been underway for months, he said.
The most discussed alternative, the Italian, British, and Japanese Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), carries its own risk. Leonardo CEO Lorenzo Mariani told Defense News that German entry would add funding and competence but could push back the program’s target of flying a new jet by 2035. “Europe cannot have too many sixth-generation fighters under development,” Mariani said.
Merz said the cancellation removes a long-standing obstacle and that core elements of FCAS, including the digital combat cloud linking jets, drones, and sensors, will continue.
The program, launched in 2017, collapsed after disputes between Airbus and France’s Dassault Aviation over control and design requirements.
