Paris Air Show 2027
Le Bourget.

What Paris Air Show is, in two lines

The Paris Air Show (Salon International de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace, SIAE) is the world’s largest trade show dedicated to the aerospace, space and defence industry. For one week Le Bourget airport turns into a temporary city: an open-air static display with over 150 aircraft, indoor halls, company chalets and daily flying demonstrations. It runs on a biennial cycle (odd years) and is organised by the SIAE, a GIFAS subsidiary. The 2025 edition (the 55th) recorded ~2,400 exhibitors from 48 countries, 305,000 visitors (141,000 trade + 164,000 public), ~70 hectares of floor space and 400 official delegations from over 100 countries.

It is not a passive showcase: it is the place where manufacturers, supply chain, airlines and government delegations close orders and select suppliers for programmes that last years. But the headline-grabbing announcements are only the tip of the iceberg: most real purchasing decisions mature in the following weeks, in negotiations that start from a contact made at the stand. That is why, for an exhibitor, managing leads is worth as much as the presence at the show itself.

What to exhibit, where to exhibit

The Le Bourget layout is one of the reasons this show is unique. The floor space is organised across three macro-areas, which you should choose based on what you are exhibiting:

• Open-air static display (over 150 aircraft): it is the media heart of the show, reserved for aircraft, large drones and systems that have to be seen live. Maximum visibility, but the logistics and costs are the most demanding.
• Indoor exhibition halls and chalets/pavilions: where the supply chain lives (components, materials, systems, avionics, propulsion, MRO). This is where most Italian and European suppliers build their presence and manage B2B meetings.
• Paris Space Hub (~2,500 m²): a hall dedicated to the space ecosystem, where agencies, satellite operators, launch providers and new-space startups gather.

The practical rule for the supply chain: choose the hall based on your buyers, not on the showcase. If you sell components or systems to OEMs and Tier 1s, the open-air static display looks impressive but captures little of the technical buyer; a well-positioned stand in your sector hall, near the large national pavilions, brings more qualified conversations. If instead your product is an aircraft, a drone or a demonstrator that “has to fly”, the static display (or a slot in the flying demonstrations) is irreplaceable.

Visitor profile

The Paris Air Show has a distinctive feature: it combines four strictly trade days (14-17 June) and three days open to the public (18-20 June). For a B2B exhibitor this distinction is everything: serious commercial leads are gathered on the trade days. Of the 305,000 visitors in 2025, 141,000 were trade and 164,000 general public.

On the trade days, the stand of an aerospace supplier mostly attracts:

• Aerospace/space manufacturers and OEMs and their technical purchasing offices (indicative band 25-35% of qualified traffic)
• Supply chain suppliers (components, materials, systems), often looking for partners and sub-suppliers (~20-25%)
• Airlines, operators and fleet managers, with MRO, avionics and propulsion buyers (~15-20%)
• Armed forces and government/institutional delegations from the defence sector, the 400 official delegations from over 100 countries (~10-15%)
• Startups and investors in sustainable air mobility, drones and new space (~10%)

The decision-making profile is senior and international: anyone who travels all the way to Le Bourget on the trade days is almost always already inside a purchasing or supplier-selection programme. Expect a very multilingual audience, with English as the de facto working language and a strong presence of delegations moving with tightly locked agendas.

How to prepare in the 4 weeks before the event

Week -4 → Messaging audit

Check that your value proposition answers, in 30 seconds, the three questions an aerospace buyer asks at the stand, in English:

1. What you do, in one sentence (the system/component/technology, not the category)
2. For whom, a precise segment (e.g. “flight-control actuators for Tier 1s in the regional segment”)
3. What changes, a measurable and credible benefit for the sector: weight, reliability, certifications (EASA/FAA), lead time, life-cycle cost

In a show where everyone talks about “innovation” and “sustainability”, technical specificity is what sets you apart. No endless slides: one clear sentence, repeated by every person on the team, in English.

Week -3 → Stand operation playbook

Define who does what across the seven days, drawing a clear line between the four trade days and the three public ones:

• Who staffs the stand on the trade days (the senior salespeople, the days that count)
• Who handles the official delegations and the scheduled appointments (often booked months in advance)
• Who stays back at HQ to do live follow-up during the show itself (a real competitive advantage, see below)
• Who covers the three public days, with a lighter team and different objectives (employer branding, visibility, recruiting via L’Avion des Métiers)

Over seven days, fatigue is the first enemy of data quality: plan shifts by time slot and never leave the trade days in the hands of junior staff.

Week -2 → Qualification form

Every contact collected should be qualified on the spot, not “later”. For aerospace the three critical questions are:

1. Programme/timing, which programme or platform do you work on and on what horizon (in production, in development, in the supplier-selection phase)?
2. Role in the supply chain, are you an OEM, Tier 1/2, operator, institutional body?
3. Decision, who validates the choice of supplier and what qualification/certification requirements are needed?

Everything else (headquarters, revenue, known programmes, public certifications) can be found in the 25-plus data sources that a good automatic enrichment covers, without stealing precious time at the stand.

Week -1 → CRM integrations

The classic mistake: contacts on business cards, badge photos, scattered scans, and then no one moves them into the CRM until it is too late. In a sector with long cycles and many decision-makers, being first with the follow-up is what keeps you in the shortlist of suppliers under consideration.

Set the system up so that every scan, at the show, lands straight in the company CRM, with an event tag + qualification answers + a voice note from the salesperson. Not in an Excel, not just in the official app catalogue, not in a sheet “we’ll sort out on Monday”.

Is the official Paris Air Show app worth it?

Yes, the official Paris Air Show app exists, is free and should be downloaded: it contains the programme, the show maps, the exhibitor catalogue and the flying display schedule. Across 70 hectares and seven days, it is a valuable orientation tool, both for you and for the visitors looking for you.

But it is important to be honest about what the app does not do, because it is not designed as a commercial tool for the exhibitor:

• It is not a lead-capture system at the stand: it is for browsing and being found, it works from the visitor’s side.
• It does not export contacts into your company CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive).
• It does not enrich data automatically: if you only collect name + company, that is what you keep.
• It does not send follow-up to the prospect: the follow-up is up to you, manually, afterwards.
• It does not generate an executive report on your stand’s performance.
• And like every show app, it changes with each edition: the data is not yours, it lives in the fair’s ecosystem.

In other words, the official app is excellent for getting around the show and for visibility, but precisely for that reason it makes an owned capture system even more necessary, one that takes the contact from the scan all the way to the CRM. That is exactly the workflow Linkly runs, with the capture → enrichment → qualification → follow-up chain handled by a team of six AI agents. Here is how Linkly works.

What to do during the 7 days of the show

Day 1 (Monday 14 June), trade opening

• Team briefing at 8:15: review the three messages, the roles and the delegation appointment schedule
• Calibration: the first leads of the day serve to fine-tune the qualification questions
• Check the map at the stand and the flying display times (useful for managing flows)
• At the end of the day, first debrief: what works, what to fix tomorrow

Day 2 (Tuesday 15 June), first full day

The show gets into full swing. Expect the first peak of technical buyers and delegations. Keep a senior person always present and punctually manage the appointments already on the calendar: the most strategic prospects have packed agendas and little margin.

Day 3 (Wednesday 16 June), decision-making heart

Historically one of the days with the most qualified traffic. It is when the meetings of substance with OEMs, Tier 1s and operators concentrate. Maximum attention to on-the-spot qualification: every serious contact from this day goes into the CRM by evening, not “by the end of the week”.

Day 4 (Thursday 17 June), last trade day

The last window for pure buyers before the public opening. Traffic still high, ideal for closing the remaining appointments and for the more in-depth conversations with the hot leads from the previous days. From here on, the nature of the audience changes.

Day 5 (Friday 18 June), public opening

The part open to the general public begins: families, enthusiasts, students. Commercial traffic drops sharply. Reposition the team on different objectives: employer branding and recruiting (also via L’Avion des Métiers), brand visibility, managing outreach material. Clearly distinguish these contacts from the B2B leads in the CRM.

Day 6 (Saturday 19 June), public on the weekend

Peak attendance of the general public and the flying demonstrations. A light presence at the stand, focus on image and engagement. It is also the ideal moment to walk around the competitors: see who came, with what, and gather ideas for the next edition.

Day 7 (Sunday 20 June), closing

The last public day and dismantling ahead. Traffic falling. Use it for the team’s final debrief, to consolidate the data collected and to make sure that every qualified lead from the trade days is already in the CRM before leaving Le Bourget. The follow-up starts on Monday, not in ten days’ time.

What to do in the 7 days after the show

In the aerospace industry sales cycles are long and decision-makers many, but precisely for that reason the speed of first contact is what keeps you in the shortlist of suppliers under consideration. Whoever calls a buyer back within 48 hours, while the conversation at the stand is still fresh, starts with an advantage that is hard to recover for those who get in touch weeks later.

The follow-up playbook:

1. Within 24h, a personalised email to every qualified lead. No templates: a reference to something specific said at the stand (the programme they work on, the certification requirement they mentioned).
2. Within 7 days, an assigned account manager for every qualified lead, with a specific touchpoint scheduled (call, demo, plant visit). No indistinct batch emails.
3. Within 14 days, keep the promises made at the stand (technical datasheets, qualification dossiers, quotes). Extractable automatically from the salesperson’s voice notes, if the system recorded them.
4. Within 30 days, an executive report on performance vs target: lead distribution by segment (OEM, Tier, operator, defence), by country, estimated pipeline. It is what you need to justify the investment in the next Le Bourget to management.

Practical FAQ

How much does it cost to exhibit at the Paris Air Show?

Costs are not public and vary enormously depending on the type: space in an indoor hall is very different from a stand with an aircraft in the open-air static display or from a chalet on the flightline. To give a realistic order of magnitude for a supply chain supplier with a stand in a hall: indicatively from €25,000-50,000 for space alone for limited surface areas, to which you add build, technical services, logistics, travel and staff for a week, easily reaching €60,000-120,000+ in total. Presences with an aircraft in the static display or a dedicated chalet rise to decidedly higher orders of magnitude. For official rate cards, refer to the SIAE / GIFAS.

What is the best day for B2B lead capture?

The four trade days (14-17 June), without doubt. The central days (Tuesday and Wednesday) generally concentrate the most qualified traffic of technical buyers and delegations. From Friday onwards the show opens to the general public and changes nature completely: useful for image and recruiting, marginal for commercial leads.

When do visitor registrations and trade badges open?

Generally in the months leading up to the show, on the official website. The distinction between trade access (days 14-17) and public access (18-20) is managed at registration: make sure your invitations for buyers and partners are for the trade days. Check siae.fr for the opening dates of the 2027 pre-registration.

Is it worth bringing an aircraft to the static display?

It depends on what you sell. If your product is an aircraft, a drone or a demonstrator, the static display (or a slot in the flying demonstrations) is the best way to show it and generates enormous media visibility. If instead you are a supplier of components, systems or MRO services, the same figure goes much further invested in a well-positioned stand in a hall and a sales team that qualifies and follows up leads: the technical buyer has to be intercepted where they hold B2B meetings, not on the flightline.

What is the alternative to the business card for collecting contacts?

Paper and badge photos are the worst option: digitisation time, errors, leads lost between one appointment and the next over seven days of the show. Three practical alternatives:

1. The show’s official app, useful for being found and getting around, but it is not a contact-collection tool at the stand nor does it connect to your CRM (see the section above).
2. A CRM with native mobile scanning (HubSpot, Salesforce have dedicated features), it works if the team knows how to use them with discipline, which is not a given amid delegations and pressing appointments.
3. A dedicated lead-capture system + AI agents for enrichment, qualification and follow-up, the pattern Linkly runs: from the scan to the CRM with an event tag, qualification answers and a voice note. Here is how it works.

Page updated ahead of the 2027 edition. For official information and exhibitor/visitor registration, refer to the website siae.fr and to the organiser GIFAS.