Shaping the Future of Flight with Aluminum

As the aerospace industry navigates rising environmental demands and the push for next-generation aircraft, the need for lightweight, high-performance, and scalable solutions has never been greater.

Meeting aerospace’s next big challenges

In the next 5-10 years, aerospace must reduce CO₂ emissions and replace aging fleets with more fuel-efficient aircraft. This drives the need for higher production rates and lighter, more efficient, eco-friendly designs.

Constellium is prepared to meet these demands with:

• High-rate production capacity backed by decades of aerospace experience
• A mature, reliable global supply chain
• High-performance aluminum for wings, fuselages, and structural parts designed for tough conditions
• Dimensional flexibility for ultra-long panels and wide skins
• Cost competitiveness balancing innovation with industrial efficiency

Lightweighting: A Direct Path to Sustainability

Reducing aircraft weight directly lowers fuel consumption and emissions. Aluminum, especially aluminum-lithium alloys like Airware®, offers up to 20% weight savings over traditional materials.      
Constellium’s broad alloy portfolio and ready-to-integrate solutions are supported by one of the world’s largest R&D centers, continuously advancing alloy development, forming, joining, and sustainable manufacturing at industrial scale.

Turning Innovation Into Scalable Reality

Constellium leverages cross-industry expertise from packaging, automotive, and notably space, where performance and weight savings are critical.      
Our aluminum-lithium alloys used in satellites and launch vehicles translate to robust, lightweight solutions for commercial aircraft. This space heritage ensures innovations are practical, scalable, and proven under extreme conditions.

From Vision to Execution: Program Highlights

A recent success story is the NEO (New Engine Option) aircraft program, which delivers a 15–20% reduction in fuel consumption. This leap in efficiency was made possible thanks to Constellium’s high-performance aluminum alloys, developed specifically for the wings. Our ability to support high build rates with proven industrial capabilities was instrumental in helping our partners meet their performance and ramp-up goals. 

Looking ahead, another ambitious initiative is our involvement in the “Wing of the Future” project, for which we were proud to receive a France 2030 award. This project aims to develop advanced technologies and materials that enhance aircraft performance through lighter weight, faster assembly, and improved recyclability - all critical to supporting the expected production ramp-up and the aviation industry’s sustainability goals.

Designing the Next Generation of Aircraft

Looking ahead to the next 20+ years, the aerospace industry will undergo a profound transformation, driven by more ambitious climate goals and the desire to explore new propulsion concepts, aircraft architectures, and materials. One thing is certain: the future is uncertain, but the challenges are clear – and at Constellium, we have the teams, technologies, and industrial agility to address all possible scenarios.

Improved aerodynamics are vital, with trends like high aspect ratio wings and radical designs such as flying wings or integrated fuselages.      
Constellium’s flexible aluminum manufacturing accommodates large, complex parts with tight tolerances, ensuring materials adapt without shape, size, or performance compromises. Whatever architecture is chosen, our materials will adapt, without limits on shape or size, while maintaining optimal mechanical performance and industrial efficiency.

Powering Tomorrow: Propulsion-Driven Innovation

Hydrogen? Open rotor? SAF? Hybrid combustion? Even though the propulsion technology of the future is not yet decided, one thing is clear: each option will have a strong impact on the structure and materials.      
Constellium offers lightweight, robust aluminum solutions adaptable to engine placement changes and fuel transitions, leveraging space-sector expertise to handle extreme thermal and mechanical stresses.

Engineering the Future: Breakthrough Technologies in Focus

In this phase of exploration, we are implementing concrete solutions for challenges that are still being defined. What sets us apart is the unique combination of our metallurgical expertise and our mastery of advanced processes:

• Friction Stir Welding (FSW) for corrosion-resistant, rivet-free joints.
• Metal bonding to enhance structural integrity and reduce corrosion risk.
• Innovative forming methods like stretch forming and hydroforming enabled by custom high-performance alloys.
• Aluminum-based powders developed for additive manufacturing, allowing complex, lightweight parts with minimal waste.

Circular by Design: Our Commitment to Aviation Sustainability

Aluminum is inherently sustainable – it is 100% recyclable without any degradation of its mechanical properties. Constellium has built its strategy around this unique advantage, integrating circularity at every stage of the product lifecycle:

• Enabling Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF): By providing lighter structural components, we help reduce aircraft weight, which directly leads to improved fuel efficiency and lower CO₂ emissions. Our materials support the aviation industry’s transition to SAF, helping to achieve global net-zero targets while maintaining the highest standards of performance and safety. When the industry advances towards new propulsion technologies, we will be ready to provide the necessary materials to support that shift - drawing on decades of experience in the space sector, where extreme performance and innovation are the norm.
• Closed-loop recycling systems: We collect and reintegrate production scrap directly into our manufacturing process, ensuring no loss in performance and minimizing waste.
• End-of-life recyclability: While this area is still under development, we’ve reached a significant milestone. Together with TARMAC Aerosave (a leading aircraft storage and recycling company), we have successfully produced aluminum ingots entirely from end-of-life aircraft. These ingots have been validated to match the quality, purity, and mechanical properties required for aerospace use. In practice, this means that material from a dismantled aircraft wing can be recycled and used to manufacture a new wing, with no performance compromise. This breakthrough proves the viability of a fully circular model in aviation and confirms aluminum’s critical role in long-term sustainability.