Multidisciplinary design analysis and optimization (MDAO) is a key enabler for the design of high‑aspect‑ratio wings (HARW) for next‑generation civil aircraft, by simultaneously considering aerodynamic and structural performance in large, constrained design spaces. Within the EU projects NEXTAIR and UPWING, a high‑fidelity aero‑elastic optimization was performed on a HARW representative of a short‑/medium‑range commercial aircraft. Aerodynamic drag at cruise is computed with the in‑house CFD solver elsA (ONERA‑Safran), while structural mass and sizing constraints for spars, ribs, skins, and stringers are evaluated over multiple load cases using a lower‑fidelity aero‑structural model. To limit the cost of repeated high‑fidelity analyses, a Sequential Approximate Optimization (SAO) strategy is introduced. The workflow—including coupled adjoint sensitivity analysis for gradient‑based optimization—is integrated in a modern framework built around the open‑source library GEMSEO. Results demonstrate that the methodology can handle industry‑scale aero‑structural optimization of HARW, showing strong adaptability and promising avenues for further efficiency improvements in complex MDAO applications.