The 5th bi-annual Berlin Aviation Summit took place on 9 June 2026, the day before the ILA Berlin airshow, bringing together around 500 senior decision-makers from politics, industry, science, and finance. European airlines, airframers, engine makers, and government representatives were represented at the highest level. Airbus, Lufthansa, Condor, Fraport, Emirates, MTU and Pratt & Whitney C-suite were among the speakers. The motto set the tone: “Technology drives competitiveness and sustainability.” What will it take for the European aerospace industry to lead – or survive – in a global competition race and how geopolitical tensions are reshaping industrial priorities?
Aviation as an industrial backbone and pillar of sovereignty
German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Katherina Reiche framed the stakes pointedly: Europe must decide now whether it intends to shape aviation in the decades ahead or cede ground to the United States and China. Aerospace, she argued, is simultaneously an industrial backbone, a pillar of sovereignty, and a driver of innovation. Germany must act to remain a leader in aviation. The German aviation research programme LUFo (“Luftfahrtforschungsprogramm”), she announced, will be reformed to link civil and military priorities, with higher funding rates for SMEs and an opening for international cooperation.
Three sides of the same challenge
The clearest consensus of the day: competitiveness, sustainability, and sovereignty are not competing priorities – they are interdependent, and Europe cannot afford to treat any one as optional. Peter Gerber, CEO of Condor, was direct: “When we do not enable the industry to make money, we cannot continue to invest in a sustainable fleet.” The contrast with non-European speakers was obvious: Emirates and Bahrain promoted their cost-efficient hubs, competitive MRO offers and regional connectivity advantages to a room of European policymakers who heard the message clearly: aviation is a global market, and European frameworks must reflect that – if European players want to have a chance to succeed in global competition.
Regarding sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), long-term supply remains insufficient and capital extracted from the sector is not being reinvested to accelerate the marketplace. Strong criticism was also raised over the European emission trading scheme (ETS), which expansion risks undermining competitiveness without delivering proportionate environmental benefit. The message to policymakers was unambiguous: “Less talking, more implementation of findings.”
Supply chain: the bottleneck no one has solved
Supply chain resilience and production scale-up dominated the industrial discussion. Guillaume Faury, CEO Airbus, was direct: the sector has moved from crisis to crisis since COVID-19, and discipline on priorities is non-negotiable. “We are in a moment where a good idea on a non-priority is a bad idea.” Lars Wagner, CEO Airbus Commercial Aircraft, framed the current decade as requiring a “Swiss clock system”: precision execution, supply chain discipline and focus. He continued, that the 2030s will bring the fourth revolution in aerospace – hydrogen, digital aircraft, new propulsion – but that future depends on getting the present right first.
The investment panel exposed the structural dimension. Europe has outsourced too much, for too long. Nicola Beer of the European Investment Bank was blunt: “If you are not standing on your own feet, you are bullied in your own yard.” Raw material dependencies, strategic autonomy gaps and a fragmented supplier base are active constraints on competitiveness today, not future risks. The panel’s conclusion was clear: “Fragmentation is the enemy of success.”
Key takeaways
The scaling challenges – SAF production, advanced manufacturing, AI-enabled operations, aircraft and engine production ramp-up – cannot be met by any single actor alone. European airlines, OEMs, airlines and airports must deepen collaboration, and policymakers must set the right framework to enable it. Europe’s supplier ecosystem remains too fragmented, still functioning largely as a collection of bilateral contracts rather than as an integrated industrial system – a key weakness when facing fierce global competition with a high risk of falling behind.
Absent from the day’s discussions: SESAR, the European R&I programme underpinning ATM modernisation across the continent; in a summit devoted to technology in Europe, that was notable. So too was the absence of discussion on skilled labour, the workforce pipeline on which the European industrial ambition ultimately depends.
The unified conclusion across every session: Europe is over-regulated. Regulatory complexity is no longer seen as a manageable constraint – it is perceived as an unfair burden on European actors, with competitiveness, sovereignty, security, resilience and future growth all at stake. A final note by BDLI President Michael Schoellhorn was enforcing the positive tone and call for action: “We have done it before. We can do it again”.
