Aerospace manufacturer

thumb|An [[Airbus A321 on final assembly line 3 in the Airbus plant at Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport ]]

thumb|[[NASA's AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) satellite, assembled in clean room ]]

An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry.

The aircraft industry is the industry supporting aviation by building aircraft and manufacturing aircraft parts for their maintenance. This includes aircraft and parts used for civil aviation and military aviation. Most production is done pursuant to type certificates and Defense Standards issued by a government body. This term has been largely subsumed by the more encompassing term: "aerospace industry".

Market

In 2015 the aircraft production was worth US$180.3 billion: 61% airliners, 14% business and general aviation, 12% military aircraft, 10% military rotary wing and 3% civil rotary wing; while their MRO was worth $135.1 Bn or $ Bn combined.

The global aerospace industry was worth $838.5 billion in 2017: aircraft & engine OEMs represented 28% ($ Bn), civil & military MRO & upgrades 27% ($ Bn), aircraft systems & component manufacturing 26% ($ Bn), satellites & space 7% ($ Bn), missiles & UAVs 5% ($ Bn) and other activity, including flight simulators, defense electronics, public research accounted for 7% ($ Bn).

In 2018, the new commercial aircraft value is projected for $270.4 billion while business aircraft will amount for $18 billion and civil helicopters for $4 billion.

Largest aerospace companies

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+ By Revenue ($ billion)

! Company

! 2022

! 2019

! 2018

! 2017

! 2016

! 2015

! 2014

! Country

| RTX Corporation

| 67.1 || || || || || || || (In July 2023, Raytheon Technologies Corporation changed its name to RTX Corporation.)

| Airbus

| || 46.9 || 36.0 || 30.9 || 29.0 || 33.1 || 36.2 ||

| Raytheon Company)

| GE Aerospace

| 4.78 || || 6.47 || 6.64 || 6.12 || 5.51 || 5.00 ||

| Northrop Grumman

| 3.60 || 3.97 || 3.78 || 3.30 || 3.19 || 3.08 || 3.20 ||

| Rostec

| 3.18 || || || || || || ||

| Safran

| 2.06 || || 3.43 || 2.58 || 2.54 || 1.71 || 2.74 ||

| L3Harris

| 1.27 || || || || || || ||

| Leonardo (Finmeccanica)

| 0.87 || || 0.59 || 0.90 || 1.05 || 0.94 || 0.72 ||

| Boeing

Within the US, the most attractive was Washington state, due to the best Industry (#1), leading Infrastructure (#4, New Jersey is #1) and Economy (#4, Texas is #1), good labor (#9, Massachusetts is #1), average tax policy (#17, Alaska is #1) but is costly (#33, Montana is #1).<!--

During that period of recovery a special program to restore U.S. competitiveness across all U.S. industries, Project Socrates, contributed to employment growth as the U.S. aerospace industry captured 72 percent of world aerospace market. By 1999 U.S. share of the world market fell to 52 percent.

In the European Union, aerospace companies such as Airbus, Safran, BAE Systems, Thales, Dassault, Saab AB, Terma A/S, Patria Plc and Leonardo are participants in the global aerospace industry and research effort.

In Russia, large aerospace companies like Oboronprom and the United Aircraft Corporation (encompassing Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Yakovlev, and Irkut, which includes Beriev) are among the major global players in this industry.

Cities

Important locations of the civil aerospace industry worldwide include Seattle, Wichita, Kansas, Dayton, Ohio and St. Louis in the United States (Boeing), Montreal and Toronto in Canada (Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney Canada), Toulouse and Bordeaux in France (Airbus, Dassault, ATR), Seville in Spain and Hamburg in Germany (Airbus), the North-West of England and Bristol in Britain (Airbus and AgustaWestland), Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Irkutsk in Russia (Sukhoi, Beriev), Kyiv and Kharkiv in Ukraine (Antonov), Nagoya in Japan (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Aerospace and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Aerospace), as well as São José dos Campos in Brazil where Embraer is based.

Consolidation

Several consolidations took place in the aerospace and defense industries over the last few decades.

Airbus prominently illustrated the European airliner manufacturing consolidation in the late 1960s.

In 1993, then United States Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and his deputy William J. Perry held the "Last Supper" at the Pentagon with contractors executives who were told that there were twice as many military suppliers as he wanted to see: $55 billion in military–industry mergers took place from 1992 to 1997, leaving mainly Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas for US$13.3 billion in 1996.

Raytheon acquired Hughes Aircraft Company for $9.5 billion in 1997.

BAE Systems is the successor company to numerous British aircraft manufacturers which merged throughout the second half of the 20th century. Many of these mergers followed the 1957 Defence White Paper. Marconi Electronic Systems, a subsidiary of the General Electric Company, was acquired by British Aerospace for US$12.3 billion in 1999 merger, to form BAE Systems.

In 2002, when Fairchild Dornier was bankrupt, Airbus, Boeing or Bombardier declined to take the 728JET/928JET large regional jet program as mainline and regional aircraft manufacturers were split and Airbus was digesting its ill-fated Fokker acquisition a decade earlier.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+ Major aerospace and defence deals 2012-2018

! Target !! Buyer !! data-sort-type="usLongDate" | Closed !! U.S. Bn || scope="col" class="unsortable" |

| Precision Castparts || Berkshire Hathaway || style="text-align: right;" | January 2016 || style="text-align: right;" | 37.2 ||

| Rockwell Collins || United Technologies || style="text-align: right;" | November 2018 || style="text-align: right;" | 30.0 ||

| Goodrich || United Technologies || style="text-align: right;" | July 2012 || style="text-align: right;" | 18.3 ||

| Orbital ATK || Northrop Grumman || style="text-align: right;" | June 2018 || style="text-align: right;" | 9.2 ||

| Sikorsky || Lockheed Martin || style="text-align: right;" | November 2015 || style="text-align: right;" | 9.0 ||

| B/E Aerospace || Rockwell Collins || style="text-align: right;" | April 2017 || style="text-align: right;" | 8.6 ||

| Alliant Techsystems' A&D Group || Orbital ATK || style="text-align: right;" | February 2015 || style="text-align: right;" | 5.0 ||

| Exelis Inc. || Harris Corporation || style="text-align: right;" | May 2015 || style="text-align: right;" | 4.75 ||

| Avio S.p.A. Aviation Business || General Electric || style="text-align: right;" | August 2013 || style="text-align: right;" | 4.3 ||

| Titanium Metals Corp || Precision Castparts || style="text-align: right;" | December 2012 || style="text-align: right;" | 3.0 ||

| Firth Rixson || Alcoa || style="text-align: right;" | July 2015 || style="text-align: right;" | 2.85 ||

The Oct. 16, 2017 announcement of the CSeries partnership between Airbus and Bombardier Aerospace could trigger a daisy chain of reactions towards a new order.<!--

On 21 December, Boeing and Embraer confirmed they were discussing a potential merger, with any transaction subject to approval from Brazilian government regulators as well as the companies' boards and shareholders.

The weight of Airbus and Boeing could help E2 and CSeries sales but the 100-150 seats market seems slow.

As the CSeries, renamed A220, and E-jet E2 are more capable than their predecessors, they moved closer to the lower end of the narrowbodies.<!--

On April 3, 2020, Raytheon and United Technologies Corporation (except Otis Worldwide, leaving Rockwell Collins and engine maker Pratt and Whitney) merged to form Raytheon Technologies Corporation, with combined sales of $79 billion in 2019.

The most prominent unions between 1995 and 2020 include those of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas; the French, German and Spanish parts of EADS; and United Technologies with Rockwell Collins then Raytheon, but many mergers projects did not went through: Textron-Bombardier, EADS-BAE Systems, Hawker Beechcraft-Superior Aviation, GE-Honeywell, BAE Systems-Boeing (or Lockheed Martin), Dassault-Aerospatiale, Safran-Thales, BAE Systems-Rolls-Royce or Lockheed Martin–Northrop Grumman.

Suppliers

The largest aerospace suppliers are United Technologies with $28.2 billion of revenue, followed by GE Aerospace with $24.7 billion, Safran with $22.5 billion, Rolls-Royce Holdings with $16.9 billion, Honeywell Aerospace with $15.2 billion and Rockwell Collins including B/E Aerospace with $8.1 billion. Electric aircraft development could generate large changes for the aerospace suppliers.

On 26 November 2018, United Technologies announced the completion of its Rockwell Collins acquisition, renaming systems supplier UTC Aerospace Systems as Collins Aerospace, for $23 billion of sales in 2017 and 70,000 employees, and $39.0 billion of sales in 2017 combined with engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.

Supply chain

Before the 1980s/1990s, aircraft and aeroengine manufacturers were vertically integrated.<!--

References

External links

Aerospace Craft & Structural Components