Ahead of major narrowbody deals, Farnborough increasingly highlights defence tech and AI as supply constraints temper aircraft orders and governments boost military spending.<\/p>\n
The Farnborough International Airshow opens on Monday in Farnborough, England, where Boeing and Airbus will focus on securing aircraft-supply deals, while defence companies seek opportunities amid rising military budgets driven by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Aircraft manufacturers are expected to announce a string of deals over the week, but industry sources say total orders are likely to come in below analysts\u2019 forecasts of about 800 units due to supply-chain problems that constrain production.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the defence industry is arriving at the fair in force: governments are increasing defence spending and looking for lessons from conflicts that emphasise the importance of drones, missile-defence systems and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Also on Monday, the future prime minister, Andy Burnham, begins his foray into politics and may appear at the event from July 20\u201324.<\/p>\n
Organisers confirm that the defence sector will account for half of the record 1,600 exhibitors at the fair, signaling a shift away from purely commercial aviation toward defence technologies.<\/p>\n
The changes in priorities reflect how conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East are affecting spending and demand for new defence solutions, including unmanned combat systems, missile-defence systems and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
The head of Boeing\u2019s Commercial Airplanes division said on the eve of the start that the company is focusing on increasing and improving aircraft production rather than announcing new orders.<\/p>\n
Industry sources say Airbus and Boeing together expect to secure a little over 300 aircraft orders.<\/p>\n
Among the expected announcements are around 100 narrow-body aircraft from each manufacturer through the Irish leasing company SMBC Aviation Capital; word of a potential deal had previously been reported in news briefs, but other companies have not commented yet.<\/p>\n
Other airlines discussing orders include Riyadh Air and Philippine Airlines.<\/p>\n
However, there were no signs of progress in talks between Turkish Airlines and engine manufacturers regarding long-term service agreements tied to the planned purchase of 150 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.<\/p>\n
Overall, Farnborough 2026 underscores the growing importance of the defence sector and the role of new technologies in the global aerospace and defence landscape, where demand for drones, missile-defence systems and artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly significant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of major narrowbody deals, Farnborough increasingly highlights defence tech and AI as supply constraints temper aircraft orders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2370,2371,2372,14,1176,2369,1039,2373,34],"class_list":["post-3850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-airbus-orders","tag-aircraft-supply-chain","tag-boeing-orders","tag-defence-industry","tag-defense-technology","tag-farnborough-airshow-boeing-orders-airbus-orders-defense-technology-military-budgets-aircraft-supply-chain","tag-farnborough-airshow","tag-military-budgets","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}