Presentation and Key Figures


© Airbus  

European aeronautical engineering had its beginnings in Midi-Pyrenees. Many famous names are part of the region’s contribution to aviation history: industrialists, such as Clément Ader, Emile Dewoitine, Pierre-Georges Latécoère, and Louis Bréguet, and the Aeropostale pioneers including Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Jean Mermoz. Today, as a result of 35 years of European cooperation, Airbus has become one of the greatest civil aircraft builder in the world in terms of aircraft delivered and orders received, neck and neck with Boeing. Airbus headquarters are in the Midi-Pyrenees, at Blagnac.

The Midi-Pyrenees aeronautical industry is a center of European excellence, an incontestable social and economic asset, and a strategic industry that helps the region shine throughout Europe and the world. Amongst its strengths we can see:

  • some twenty aeronautics constructors and major equipment manufacturers , 27,000 employees
  • over 560 establishments involved in aeronautics construction , 32,000 employees

Breakdown of Jobs in the French Aeronautics Industry

 
Source : GIFAS. French Aerospace Industry, 2005-2006
(map based on GIFAS member companies) 

Aerospace Valley 
Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine have received the Competitiveness Cluster label for
"Aeronautics, Space and Embedded Systems"

With over than 1300 establishments, 94,000 industrial jobs and 8,500 people employed in research, Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine offer the leading employment pool in Europe in the fields of aeronautics, space and embedded systems.

By combining their strengths through the creation of Aerospace Valley , these two regions have received the government's quality label as Competitiveness Cluster including the honorary designation "world cluster", under a single governing body. 

Numerous cooperative projects have been defined, along with pivotal projects including :
- the Aerospace Campus in Toulouse
- the Dismantling Center for end of life cycle aircraft in Tarbes
- The helicopter maintenance center at Montauban : HELIMaintenance
- the INRIA ICT skills center in Bordeaux

Site map FAQ Mailing list