In just a few years, the serial production of the military transport aircraft A400M may come to a halt, particularly around 2027-2028. The main issue is that France and Spain, as participants in the A400M program, have drastically reduced their orders for this transport aircraft, and its export sales have been quite sluggish.
Against this backdrop, a theoretical option to somewhat salvage the production of this transport aircraft could be a potential order from Poland. However, the question remains as to how viable this option might actually be.
Specifically, the German publication Hartpunkt reports that Germany's Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, mentioned Poland's potential interest in purchasing A400M during his visit to the Airbus factory in Bremen, Germany.
The visit was motivated by the concerns of the factory workers regarding the possibility that A400M production could cease by the aforementioned 2027-2028 period, as there are no new orders for the aircraft. France has cut its order book by 13 units, and Spain by 10, which is concerning for these program participant countries that should be directly invested in maintaining stability in orders for the transport aircraft they produce themselves.
However, regarding the potential order from Poland, Pistorius provided very little detail—only stating that "there is very concrete interest from Poland, which we are working on together." Additionally, Hartpunkt's authors noted that "according to observers, Poland will need at least 10 A400M aircraft."
From Defense Express, we would like to highlight several aspects. The first is Poland's stated intention to acquire A400M aircraft. Theoretically, purchasing such aircraft would significantly enhance the capabilities of Poland's military transport aviation, which currently operates seven C-130s, 16 C295M aircraft, and 23 M-28 Bryza planes (a licensed copy of the An-28).
However, it should be noted that the potential order for A400M from Poland may be politically motivated, driven by Warsaw's desire to establish defense cooperation with Berlin. This will, in turn, determine the actual scale of the potential order for these transport aircraft for the Polish Air Force.
The next aspect is the situation itself, in which the future of A400M is under threat due to France and Spain, as producing countries, cutting their orders. Pistorius explained their actions as being due to "financial difficulties," but there may be another underlying reason—namely, a lack of understanding by the military leadership of these countries regarding the necessity to develop military transport aviation in modern conditions.
This is indeed a significant problem, especially considering that even the experience of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine and the actions of Western countries in this context have demonstrated that military transport aviation remains an extremely important means of operational delivery of weaponry.
For instance, reports indicate that in June 2022, the United Kingdom was so actively transporting aid to Ukraine that it ran out of its own aircraft, necessitating the involvement of at least one C-130 from New Zealand.