The shake-up is not currently expected to lead to compulsory redundancies and will be achieved mainly through attrition and gaps in hiring over the coming two years, they said.

An Airbus spokesperson confirmed the target in response to a query from Reuters, adding it would not result in a net reduction overall "as our business is growing in total."

Airbus Defence & Space had 34,330 employees at end-2022.

Airbus announced the reorganization on Wednesday after the division posted a loss following a 300-million-euro quarterly charge on unspecified satellite developments, which industry sources said included the reprogrammable OneSat family.

It also confirmed a Reuters report that it was combining two fighter businesses into one, with its share of the future Franco-German-Spanish FCAS/SCAF grouped together with the existing Eurofighter and other military aircraft and drones.

Codenamed ATOM, the revamp aims to simplify a thicket of separate programs and reduce the number of layers in the organisationsl structure as Airbus tackles Europe's fragmented arms industry.

The spokesperson said the revamp "is about a lot more than synergies" and would include clarifying responsibilities.

A reorganization has been in the works most of this year.

The division faces cutbacks in French and Spanish orders on the A400M transporter, ambitious new developments such as the Eurodrone and delays and cost overruns on the Ariane 6 space launcher, for which the industry received a promise of future operating support at a European space summit earlier this week.

"The challenge that Airbus and (CEO) Guillaume Faury have is restructuring and cost-cutting when dealing with a multiplicity of national sovereignty businesses," Agency Partners analyst Sash Tusa said.

As part of a separate management reorganization of its civil business, Faury is due to step back from the day-to-day running of planemaking and focus on strategy for other activities starting in January.

Faury said on Wednesday the simplified structure in defense and space would be in place early next year.