The Aeroespace & Defense Meetings (ADM) Seville 2026 event has concluded with an "enormously positive" balance, after registering the participation of 415 companies and the celebration of 9,000 business meetings in three days. These figures, which far exceed initial forecasts, consolidate the international character of the event and have also served to announce a new edition in 2028.
This was stated this Thursday by the general director of Andalucía Trade, Antonio Castro, in statements to the media, where he remarked that ADM is the "international reference meeting in southern Europe" for the aerospace industry "by reason of attendance and participation". "The figures we have just closed are a tribute to that label," he pointed out.
Castro detailed that the initial objective was to exceed 300 registered companies and finally 415 gathered, of which "practically half" come from abroad. He emphasized the "quality" of the business representation, with 55 large manufacturers, "large shipowners", more than half also international.
In this vein, the head of Andalucía Trade insisted that ADM's "international event label" is "absolutely indisputable", both due to the number of companies present and the profile of the attendees and the leading companies that attend the fair.
Likewise, he indicated that this edition has surpassed the professional participation record of 2024, with company representatives involved in the different sections of the program, especially in the business agenda. Against the forecast of about 8,000 interviews, the final count has reached 9,000 business meetings.
"It is a magnificent record and highlights the strength of the sector, because ultimately ADM is nothing more than a reflection of the reality of the aerospace sector in Andalusia," Castro stressed.
The general director of Andalucía Trade has also ratified that the next edition of ADM will take place in Seville in 2028, as it is a biennial event. In his opinion, the Andalusian capital is today "the epicenter of the aerospace business circuit", not only in the community, but also in Spain as a whole.
Training and talent attraction
Parallel to the exhibition activity, the last day of ADM Sevilla has focused part of its program on one of the great challenges of the aerospace and defense sector: the attraction and retention of talent. For this, a round table was organized on training and connection between the educational system and the real demands of the industry, with the attendance of students from different specialized centers in Andalusia.
During this session, the Human Resources director of Airbus, Antonio Lasaga, has defended the need to strengthen cooperation between companies, universities, and administrations to adjust the training offer to the evolution of the sector. He cited as an example the company's collaboration with universities, with which it promotes joint programs and master's degrees designed according to industry requirements, in addition to scholarship programs that facilitate the entry of young professionals.
As he indicated, around 50% of the students participating in these initiatives subsequently join Airbus, while the rest go on to join other companies in the sector.
Lasaga also highlighted Airbus's commitment to Vocational Training, an area in which the company has collaborated for years with educational and employment administrations, both in Andalusia and in other regions, within different lines of work aimed at adapting training to the quantitative needs of companies. In his opinion, this collaboration between the educational system, the public sector, and the business fabric is "fundamental" to keep training in step with a sector in permanent transformation.
For his part, the general secretary of Research and Innovation of the Junta de Andalucía, Daniel Escacena, has insisted on the importance of consolidating an ecosystem capable not only of training professionals, but also of retaining and attracting qualified talent.
In this framework, he alluded to the promotion of new university degrees linked to the aerospace and defense sector within the academic program agreed with Andalusian universities for the 2025-2028 period, and has defended that Andalusia, and Seville in particular, have ideal conditions to strengthen this ecosystem associated with a strategic industry for the community.
Drones and new defense scenarios
At another of the day's panels, the Business Development Director of Indra, Juan Mahón; the President of Arquimea, Diego Fernández; the Advisor for Defense of Swarming Technologies and Solutions, Félix Hernánz; and the 'managing director' of UAV Navigation-Grupo Oesia, Miguel Ángel de Frutos, addressed the evolution of unmanned systems and their prominence in new defense scenarios, taking as reference the experience of the war in Ukraine and other recent conflicts.
The debate has focused on the accelerated change that drones have introduced on the battlefield, where low altitude, electronic warfare, onboard autonomy, and the ability to operate without GPS or reliable communications have become key elements.
From Indra, Mahó has stressed that the use of autonomous and remotely piloted systems has led to the "democratization of airspace" and has transformed the low-altitude segment into an essential tactical environment for operations. In this regard, he explained that the company develops an ecosystem of interoperable solutions that covers everything from the detection and identification of threats to their neutralization, combining aerial platforms, anti-drone systems, point defense, and communication and command and control capabilities.
He also underlined the relevance of national sovereignty and having industrial muscle for mass production, in a context where "we are no longer talking about manufacturing one or two aircraft," but hundreds or thousands of units in reduced timeframes.
From Arquimea, Diego Fernández has focused on the evolution of loitering munition, differentiating it from conventional drones and placing it closer to missiles or artillery than to a simple observation platform.
Fernández pointed out that the war in Ukraine accelerated the industrialization of developments that were still in the prototype phase and highlighted that one of the great lessons of the conflict is the obligation to produce "faster and cheaper" than the adversary. Likewise, he warned that artificial intelligence is not yet ready to autonomously decide on an attack target, due to the risks of errors or unforeseen behaviors, which is why he advocated for continuing to advance in research before transferring certain capabilities to the front.
From an operational perspective, Félix Zernal has recalled that the massive mechanization of the battlefield is not a completely new phenomenon from a doctrinal point of view, although the war in Ukraine has accelerated its deployment and has forced a rethinking of times and priorities.
Finally, the 'managing director' of UAV Navigation has emphasized the need to develop solutions that work in real scenarios and not just in controlled tests, with robust, scalable systems capable of operating in degraded environments, in which autonomy, resilient navigation, and interoperability will be decisive for the future of unmanned systems.