Airbus Weighs Florida Exit as Space Strategy Shifts Back Across the Atlantic

Airbus weighs sale of Florida satellite factory as production shifts to Toulouse; Spanish labor dispute weighs on shares.

The satellite factory in Merritt Island, Florida, has churned out roughly 650 spacecraft for OneWeb with a workforce of around 200 — but its future now hangs in the balance. Airbus has launched a strategic review of the facility, with the Financial Times reporting on Sunday that a sale is among the options under consideration. The plant generates several hundred million dollars in annual revenue, yet it appears increasingly out of step with where the European aerospace group wants to take its space business.

That destination, increasingly, is Toulouse. Production of the next generation of OneWeb satellites is slated to move to the French hub, part of a broader consolidation of Airbus's space manufacturing footprint on home turf. The Florida operation, by contrast, would fall away from the core portfolio as the group tightens its grip on supply chains and costs.

A European Satellite Champion Takes Shape

The review of the US assets is one strand of a wider repositioning. Airbus is pushing ahead with plans to merge its space operations with those of Leonardo and Thales, a combination that would create a European satellite champion with projected revenue of €6.5 billion and 25,000 employees, according to reports from Les Echos and L'Agefi. The venture is expected to be operational from 2027.

A US satellite business focused on small spacecraft does not obviously fit that blueprint. The strategic logic, as analysts read it, is one of portfolio pruning — shedding peripheral operations to free up capital and reduce risk while concentrating investment where Airbus can exert the most direct control. The group has not officially commented on the Florida review.

Spanish Labor Dispute Weighs on Shares

While the space story plays out at the strategic level, a more immediate headache persists on the factory floor in Spain. Unions CGT, UGT and UTIL rejected a company proposal on pay and remote-working arrangements last Thursday and extended their walkouts, affecting roughly 40 percent of the group's 14,000 Spanish employees.

The industrial action has taken a toll on the stock. Airbus shares have shed around 2.4 percent since the dispute escalated, with the latest session showing a 1.6 percent decline to €199.08. Over the past week the stock is down 2.1 percent, and over 30 days it has lost 2.3 percent. That leaves the shares roughly 10 percent below their 52-week high of €221.25, touched on January 13.

AlphaValue had already flagged the risks before the strike escalated, reiterating its "Reduce" rating and €215 price target on August 28 while warning of "significant execution risk" to the company's target of delivering 870 aircraft this year.

Orders Keep Flowing Despite the Noise

Operationally, the commercial aircraft business continues to hum along. Airbus booked 46 gross orders in August and delivered 47 jets to 31 customers, bringing cumulative deliveries for the year to 465 aircraft through the end of the month.

The order book got a notable boost from Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific, which ordered 30 A330-900neo aircraft, while Latvia's airBaltic added ten A220-300s. Reports also point to a €5.4 billion framework agreement between Spain and Poland covering the procurement of A330-MRTT tanker aircraft.

Freighter Timeline and Analyst Sentiment

Attention now turns to the A350F freighter programme, with the prototype's first flight pencilled in for late September. Reuters and Leeham News have both cautioned that first deliveries, currently scheduled for the end of 2027, could slip into 2028.

Even with those uncertainties, several analysts have raised their price targets in recent weeks, lifting the average from the €208–209 range to €223–224 on more optimistic margin assumptions. Erste Group Bank, for its part, lifted its earnings estimate for the current fiscal year to $2.13 per share from $2.10, above the market consensus of $2.07, and sees $2.51 per share next year. The second quarter provided some support: Airbus delivered earnings of $0.61 per share on revenue of $23.36 billion, beating expectations of $0.58 and $23.20 billion respectively. Of the analysts tracked, seven rate the stock a buy and six are neutral.

The shares have shown signs of stabilising, trading around €201.15 at last count, roughly 1 percent above their 50-day average of €198.50. For investors, the picture remains one of competing forces: a solid order pipeline and margin optimism on one side, a Spanish labour dispute and freighter timing questions on the other — with the fate of the Florida satellite plant still unresolved.