Airbus executives will meet counterparts from BAE Systems to explore how the company could join the Global Combat Air Programme, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, Reuters said in its own report of the FT story on Sunday.
Source: Financial Times via Reuters / TradingView
GCAP is a partnership between Britain, Italy and Japan to build a new fighter jet, led industrially by BAE Systems, Leonardo and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Reuters reported earlier this month. The programme is focused on a 2035 target for the jet to be flying, given the security threat from China, and Japan is due to start retiring its F-2 fighters in the middle of the next decade.
Source: Reuters (Oct 8) via WABX
The reported talks follow Britain's openness to a new partner: Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on October 8 that the UK was open to Germany joining GCAP, after he met Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin. 'I've indicated to the Chancellor … our openness to Germany joining GCAP,' Burnham told a press conference, Reuters reported. Airbus is the German side's main aerospace company in the Eurofighter programme, which Germany already operates alongside Britain and Italy.
Source: Reuters (Oct 8) via WABX
Germany's interest in GCAP follows the collapse of the Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) in June 2026, after years of workshare disputes between Airbus and France's Dassault Aviation, and Chancellor Merz is understood to prefer a European solution over Germany pursuing an independent fighter programme, The Aviation Hub reported.
Source: The Aviation Hub
GCAP has been set up to allow differing levels of involvement for new partners, and it expanded for the first time in July, when Canada signed up as an observer, Reuters reported. From Britain's point of view, adding another country at a time when its military budget is under strain would help share the cost burden, but Japan may need convincing, and some executives have warned that adding new partners could lead to delays, Reuters reported.
Source: Reuters (Oct 8) via WABX
Neither Airbus nor BAE Systems has publicly confirmed the reported meeting, and Awaaz Punjab is reporting the talks as an FT report attributed to people familiar with the matter, not as a confirmed agreement.