EADS was created in 2000 with the merger of France's Aérospatiale Matra, Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (Dasa) and Dornier GmbH, and Spain's Casa (Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA). The company employs 116,000 people at more than 70 sites and has an annual turnover of US$51 billion (EUR35 billion).

EADS is dominated by French and German interests with its main shareholders comprising Germany’s Daimler (15 per cent), Spain’s
state-owned holding company SEPI (Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales) (5.5 per cent) and France’s SOGEADE (Société de Gestion de l'Aéronautique, de la Défense et de l'Espace) (22.5 per cent), divided between the French government (15 per cent) through the state-holding company SOGEPA (Société de Gestion de Participations Aéronautiques), and the holding company Désirade (7.5 per cent) owned by the media and technology group Lagardère SCA. Daimler (formerly DaimlerChrysler) originally owned a 30 per cent stake in EADS, but reduced it to 22.5 per cent in 2006 before selling in early 2007 a 7.5 per cent stake to a group of 15 private and public sector investors, including the Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and KfW Bankengruppe.

The Russian state bank Vneshtorgbank (VTB) purchased a 5.02 per cent stake in EADS in mid-2006, while the Global Strategic Equities Fund (GSEF) of the private equity group Dubai International Capital (DIC) acquired a 3.12 per cent stake in July 2007. In December, VTB confirmed that it had sold its stake to the Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank (VEB) for about US$1.4 billion (EUR995 million).

The changes in EADS’s shareholdings have come at a time when the company has experienced financial pressures due to the weak US dollar and delays to the production schedule of the A380 civilian airliner. In February 2007, plans were announced to shed up to 10,000 jobs of Airbus’ 57,000-strong workforce as part of its Power 8 restructuring programme to save up to US$7.3 billion (EUR5.0 billion) in 2007-2010 and a further US$2.9 billion (EUR2.0 billion) after that. In December 2007, EADS confirmed that it plans to sell six Airbus sites as part of Power 8. The preferred bidders announced for the Airbus divestment are France’s Groupe Latécoère (Airbus fuselages, aerostructures, wiring, engineering,) for plants at Méaulte and St Nazaire Ville in France, and the UK’s GKN Aerospace for Filton in the UK. It is expected that Airbus will form joint ventures with Latécoère and MT Aerospace for the German and French plants, while Filton will be an outright sale with transfer due to take place by mid-2008. Filton is one of two sites in the UK (the other being Broughton) that BAE Systems disposed of when it sold its 20 per cent stake in Airbus to EADS in late 2006 for about US$3.9 billion (EUR2.7 million). Filton designs and manufactures Airbus wings, employing 6,000 people.

In March 2008, Airbus announced that it had terminated negotiations with Germany’s OHB and MT Aerospace over possible acquisition of its plants at Augsburg, Nordenham and Varel in Germany due partly to the volatile financial markets. Airbus has said that it still plans to sell the plants, but will now have to look for a new partner. The Augsburg plant is actually part of EADS’s Military Air Systems (MAS) division, but builds aerostructures for Airbus. Other MAS plants are located at Ottobrunn in Germany, which is responsible for military aerospace programmes with aircraft assembly undertaken at Manching in Germany and Getafe in Spain, Friedrichshafen (UAVs, drones) and Lemwerder in Germany (aerostructures), Élancourt in France (design, marketing, UAVs), and Hania in Greece (aerial targets). EADS MAS has about 23,000 employees and an annual turnover of US$7.9 billion (EUR5.4 billion).

EADS has entered the US market through its subsidiary EADS North America. However, EADS faces stiff competition from long-established American defence companies and a government that has traditionally awarded major contracts to domestic producers reinforced by the 1933 Buy America Act. Nevertheless, EADS has expanded its business in the States by acquiring six US companies as well as creating a subsidiary of Eurocopter in the country, the American Eurocopter Corporation. Following recent major orders from several US law enforcement agencies, including 94 HH-65A Dolphin helicopters and three HC-235A (CN-235-300CG) maritime patrol aircraft for the US Coast Guard, Eurocopter’s EC145 helicopter was selected in June 2006 to meet the US Army's requirement for up to 352 Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) to replace its venerable fleet of UH-1 Iroquois. The type is known as the UH-72A Lakota in US Army service and is being built at American Eurocopter’s factory in Columbus, Mississippi.

In February 2008, the Northrop Grumman and EADS North America KC-30 was declared the winner of the USAF's KC-X tanker competition, valued at about US$40 billion (EUR27 billion). The KC-30 (or
KC-45A as it should be known as in USAF service) went head-to-head against Boeing's smaller
KC-767A and is based on the A330-200 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) that has already been ordered by Australia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the UK. The KC-30's selection surprised many analysts who had expected that Boeing would be awarded the contract, especially with its ongoing trade dispute with Airbus over alleged subsidy payments. The American company has now lodged an official protest at the decision arguing that the KC-X contract developed into an unfair competition blighted by last-minute changes to the USAF's Request for Proposals (RFP) and misunderstandings of the Northrop Grumman/EADS North America-led consortium's ability to get the KC-30 into production and delivered on time. It also argues that Northrop Grumman has underestimated the KC-30's development costs and therefore the likely purchase price.

Northrop Grumman has rejected Boeing's claims. Importantly, however, the KC-30's selection is a major coup for EADS and marks a significant change to US defence procurement, which, as previously mentioned, has traditionally awarded contracts to domestic producers. While Northrop Grumman plans to assemble about 60 per cent of the plane in the US with main assembly due to take place at a new plant at Mobile in Alabama, EU companies will feature in the aircraft's production, supplying components and parts of the airframe. It is planned that major sections of the aircraft (including refuelling boom production) will shift from Europe to the US for this project. The aircraft will also be powered by two American turbofans (General Electric CF6-80E1). Northrop Grumman estimates that the KC-30 will directly and indirectly employ some 48,000 people in the US with 230 companies. Under current plans, four System Development and Demonstration (SDD) aircraft will be built at a cost of US$1.5 billion (EUR949 million) with the first models to be built at Airbus plants in France, Germany and Spain before low-rate production shifts to the US. The initial order will be for 68 aircraft (including the four SDD) at a cost of US$12.1 billion (EUR7.7 billion) with a total requirement for 179 planes. Initial operating capability (IOC) is planned for 2013.

Apart from aircraft, other areas that EADS is involved in includes developing equipment to enable militaries to fight wars on the digital battlefield using UAVs and other airborne platforms as well as sophisticated communications and sensors. EADS D&S is one of several major EU defence firms developing Network Enhanced Capability (NEC) solutions for European armed forces. EADS D&S is currently the prime contractor on Germany's Infantryman of the Future (Infanterist der Zukunf --IdZ) and Spain's Future Combatant (Combatiente Futuro -- COMFUT) programmes. Such projects include improved body armour, self-contained jackets and helmets featuring the latest communications equipment and sensors to operate on the digital battlefield, as well as new improved infantry weapons. EADS D&S is offering other armies similar infantryman kit through its Warrior21 system. In November 2007, Switzerland awarded EADS D&S's subsidiary, EADS Defence Communications, with a contract to develop prototype infantryman equipment for the Swiss armed forces as part of the country's integrated modular Swiss soldier infantry system (Integriertes Modulares Einsatzsystem Schweizer Soldat -- IMESS). The prototype kit will be delivered to Switzerland in 2008 with a possible full order to follow in 2009. France's Sagem Défense Sécurité, which has already developed the Integrated Equipment and Communications Infantryman (Fantassin à Équipements et Liaisons Intégrés -- FELIN) system for the French Army, will be also involved in the project.