Engineering the skies of tomorrow
Critical FlyTech was born from a shared conviction: that the future of aerospace will be defined by software. Founded in 2025 as a joint venture between Airbus and Critical Software, the company is dedicated to developing high-assurance, certifiable embedded software and digital solutions for the aerospace industry.
Headquartered in Coimbra with a second office in Lisbon, Critical FlyTech brings together the aerospace expertise of the world's leading aircraft manufacturer with decades of safety-critical engineering experience — to build technology that meets the highest standards of safety, reliability, and certification.
A partnership built on engineering excellence
From an extensive evaluation process, Critical Software was selected as Airbus' partner to establish a new centre of excellence for aerospace software development in Portugal. Critical FlyTech is 51% owned by Airbus and 49% by Critical Software — a structure that reflects genuine shared ownership of the mission.
The venture focuses on the domains that matter most to the future of aviation: avionics, cabin system technologies, and next-generation connectivity systems. All work is built to the highest assurance levels, designed to certify, and engineered to perform in the most demanding environments in the world.
How it works
Critical FlyTech operates at the intersection of Airbus' global innovation ecosystem and Critical Software's culture of rigorous, safety-first engineering. Teams work with an embedded agile mindset, combining deep technical expertise with the discipline that certifiable aerospace software demands.
The venture launched with around 120 specialists and is on track to grow to 300 people by the end of 2028 — building one of Portugal's most significant aerospace engineering communities in the process.
A story still being written
Critical FlyTech is in its early chapters — but the ambition is clear. As aerospace systems become more digital and more complex, the need for high-assurance software engineering only grows. Critical FlyTech exists to meet that need, with the backing of two organisations that have spent decades proving they can.
Portugal is at the heart of it. And the skies ahead are wide open.