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Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman are the four largest Western aerospace manufacturers that make complete military aircraft, although France’s Dassault and the UK’s BAE Systems are also significant. According to CompaniesMarketCap, as of the time of writing, Boeing is the most valuable with a market capitalization of $197 billion, followed closely by Airbus at $193 billion, then Lockheed Martin at $134 billion, and Northrop Grumman at $96 billion.
Of these, which does Airbus or Lockheed Martin produce more military aircraft? It would seem that Airbus delivers more military helicopters than Lockheed, while Lockheed wipes the floor with fighter jets. When it comes to tankers and transport aircraft, it’s more difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Here is why Lockheed is a bigger producer of military aircraft than Airbus.
Airbus Is Mostly Commercial, While Lockheed Martin Mostly Focuses On Defense
Airbus is mostly a civilian aerospace company that also has a significant defense sector. Only around 17% of Airbus’ business is through its Airbus Defence and Space branch, with most being its commercial aircraft. Helicopters are roughly 50/50 split between civil/parapublic and defense. Adding in defense-related helicopter revenue, Airbus’s defense revenue is around 26–29% of total revenue, or up to around $23 billion.
By contrast, around 96% of Lockheed Martin’s business is defense, with around 73% of its total revenue coming from just US government contracts. But while Lockheed is more military-focused than Airbus, Airbus is more airplane-focused than Lockheed. A greater percentage of Lockheed’s revenue comes from missiles, fire control, and its space sector. Lockheed’s total revenue is similar to that of Airbus at around $71 billion.
The F-35 stealth fighter program accounts for around a quarter of its revenue. Lockheed Martin’s Aeronautics arm, driven by its F-35, F-16, and C-130J programs, drove around 39% of its revenue, with helicopters increasing that further. Removing items like satellites, missiles, and other non-aircraft/helicopter products might reduce Lockheed’s attributable income more than for Airbus, but it doesn’t change the overall picture that its military aircraft are worth far more than Airbus’s.
Airbus Vs Lockheed: Helicopters
Lockheed Martin (with its Sikorsky subsidiary) and Airbus Helicopters are two of the world’s largest military helicopter producers. Sikorsky delivers around 80 helicopters every year, although the exact numbers are difficult to estimate. These include MH-60/S-70 family helicopters, CH-53 helicopters, and VH-92 Marine One helicopters. These are all military helicopters, and in January 2026, Sikorsky reported delivering the 350th MH-60R helicopter to the US Navy.
Airbus Helicopters is the largest producer of helicopters in the West, delivering 361 helicopters in 2024. Airbus says that “The orders came from 182 customers in 42 countries. The Company delivered 361 helicopters in 2024, resulting in a preliminary 57% share of the civil and parapublic market.” It also netted 450 new orders for 2024. Airbus doesn’t break these numbers down into military and civilian helicopters, although it’s plausible that around 150 annual deliveries are military.
There are around 2,600 military Airbus helicopters currently in service around the world. These include H125, H135, H145, H175, H225, NH90, and Tiger. Overall, Airbus Helicopters makes up around 11% of Airbus’s total business, with around half or more of that being military. Sikorsky, meanwhile, is part of Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems division, and this contributes around a quarter of Lockheed’s annual revenue.
It’s possible that Sikorsky is around two-thirds of RMS, which would suggest that helicopters are 11–17% of Lockheed’s revenue. In that case, it would mean that, on average, a Sikorsky military helicopter is more valuable than an Airbus military helicopter. As such, Lockheed’s military helicopter business may pull in more revenue than Airbus’, even though it ships fewer units.
The Real Reason Why Boeing Is Building The F-47 Stealth Fighter And Not Lockheed
Stealth, Speed, and Strategy: Inside the F-47 Revolution.
Lockheed Martin Is Bigger When It Comes To Fighter Jets
In terms of fighter jet competition between the two planemakers, Lockheed wins hands down, having delivered more F-35 aircraft (191 total) than all other non-Chinese fighter jets in the world combined in 2025. Lockheed also delivered around 19 F-16s to export customers, although the exact numbers haven’t been reported. F-35 deliveries were up from 110 in 2024 and 98 in 2023, with this upswing largely due to delivering aircraft held up by TR-3 Refresh issues.
Lockheed plans to have a stable F-35 delivery rate of 156+ annually, and it is looking to ramp up its F-16 production. By contrast, the only fighter jet program Airbus has in production is the Eurofighter Typhoon. The jet program is 33% owned by the UK, 33% by Germany, 21% by Italy, and 13% by Spain. The contractors are Airbus with a 46% share (from Germany and Spain), BAE Systems with 33% share (from the UK), and Leonardo with 21% share (from Italy).
|
Airbus & Lockheed Martin military deliveries in 2025 (per Airbus, Lockheed Martin) |
|
|---|---|
|
Airbus military helicopters |
150-160 (approx) |
|
Eurofighter Typhoon |
Approx. 10 (46% Airbus) |
|
Airbus A400 Atlas |
7 |
|
Airbus A330 MRTT |
4-6 |
|
Sikorsky helicopters |
80 (approx) |
|
F-35 Lightning II |
191 |
|
F-16 Fighting Falcon |
19 (approx) |
|
C-130J Super Hercules |
fewer than 20 |
Eurofighter deliveries are not published annually, but they have typically amounted to between 10 and 22 a year, and around 10 in 2025. Orders for the Eurofighter are now pouring in from Germany, Spain, Italy, Turkey, and possibly other countries, so production rates may pick up. With that being said, there is no comparison between Airbus and its almost 50% are in the Eurofighter program and Lockheed and its F-35 and F-16 programs.
Tankers & Transports
Both Lockheed and Airbus build military transport aircraft. Airbus is building the large Airbus A400M Atlas strategic/tactical airlifter, sized between the C-17 Globemaster III and the C-130J Super Hercules. Airbus delivered eight of these in 2024 and seven in 2025, bringing the total to 130 delivered, with European countries the main operators.
Airbus is also delivering the A330 MRTT (known as Voyager in the RAF) aerial tanker, which is the most popular tanker on the export market, but is only being delivered in the low single digits. Exact numbers are difficult to estimate. Around 66 have been delivered to nine customers, with three more having ordered the tanker, but not yet received any. The Boeing KC-46A is produced in greater numbers by virtue of the fact that the US Air Force is the main customer.
The Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules is the updated variant of the extremely popular C-130. These continue to be delivered at a steady annual rate in the low-teens. While over 2,500 C-130s were delivered, a total of over 590 C-130Js are in service around the world with more on order. The C-130J remains popular, but not as popular as its older C-130 cousin was, and it also faces more competition from aircraft like the Embraer C-390 Millennium.
How Many F-35s Are In Service With The US Air Force?
The US Air Force has over 400 and perhaps closer to 500 F-35s in inventory, while Lockheed has delivered over 1,000 F-35s in total.
Both Firms Are Floundering On Sixth-Generation Jets
Lockheed won the US Air Force’s two fifth-generation contracts to build the F-22 and F-35, but its luck may have run out. After all, it lost the contract to build the next-generation F-47 fighter jet for the Air Force to Boeing, and it has also been eliminated from competing for the US Navy’s sixth-generation fighter jet. This means Lockheed is highly dependent on the F-35 program to remain the fighter jet leader it is.
Airbus may only own around half of the Eurofighter program, but it is also the German contractor in the troubled FCAS sixth-generation fighter jet program (along with Dassault from France and Indra Sistemas from Spain). However, the FCAS is mired in disputes between Airbus and Dassault, and this risks scuppering the program. If that happens, it’s unclear if Airbus will build a sixth-generation jet alone or with Saab, or join the BAE-led Tempest/GCAP program.
It should be noted that if Lockheed or Airbus were to produce these sixth-generation jets, it would make one-for-one comparisons even more difficult. These are expected to only be produced in low numbers, including only around 185 F-47s for the US Air Force, which would be an order of magnitude fewer than the F-35. Beyond the F-35 and Eurofighter programs, future mass production will likely belong to uncrewed combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs).
Lockheed Bigger, But The Future Belongs To UCAVs
Both Airbus and Lockheed Martin are increasingly looking to high-level combat drones for future production. In 2024, Airbus unveiled its Loyal Wingman drone, and in 2025, it announced it would produce a version of the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie for the German Air Force with Airbus systems.
Meanwhile, Lockheed lost Increment 1 of the US Air Force CCA program to General Atomics and Andruil. The Air Force saw its solution as overly bespoke and gold-plated. Undeterred, Lockheed has recently unveiled an updated high-end combat drone called Vectis.
To a large degree, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare Airbus military aircraft to Lockheed aircraft, as they are fundamentally different. The A400M is a much larger aircraft than the Super Hercules, designed for a different role, and the A330 MRTT may be a competitor to the Boeing KC-46A, but there is no Lockheed equivalent.
Overall, Lockheed Martin is clearly the bigger aerospace military contractor of the two, especially when it comes to fighter jets, but this might not stay that way forever. With European countries looking to arm and buy European, Airbus is expecting to receive more orders. Of course, in the real world, it’s not always that simple to just buy European, as there are sometimes no alternatives for US systems such as the F-35.
