Hawker Siddeley Group PLC was initially formed as the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Company on 11th July 1935. The new company was established to acquire all of the shares of the Armstrong Siddeley Development Company and 50% of the shares of the Hawker Aircraft Company. This merged the two largest British aircraft manufacturers and included the subsidiaries of the two companies involved. These consisted of Armstrong Siddeley Motors, Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Ltd and A.V. Roe and Co, which were part of the Armstrong Siddeley Development Company, and the Gloster Aircraft Company, which was part of Hawker, all of which continued to produce aircraft under their own names. During the Second World War Hawker Siddeley was one of the most important aircraft manufacturers in Britain. During the course of the conflict it produced several important designs including the Hawker Hurricane and Avro Lancaster as well as working on Britain’s first jet aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, and the first British jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor. In 1945 the company also purchased Victory Aircraft from the Canadian government and transferred to its subsidiary Avro. This then became A.V. Roe Canada but was most often know as Avro Canada. On 22nd June 1948 the company underwent a restricting when it was transformed from a private to a public limited company and underwent a name change. As such it went from being Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Company Limited to Hawker Siddeley Group Limited. In 1957 the Hawker Siddeley Group purchased the Brush Group, which included Brush Electrical Machines and Brush Traction. At the time it also acquired Mirrlees, Bickerton and Day. It also formed Hawker Siddeley John Brown Nuclear Construction as a joint venture to produce nuclear power equipment for marine propulsion, electrical generation and other industrial applications. In 1958 it formed another join company this time with Beyer Peacock, under the name Beyer Peacock (Hymek) Ltd, in order to manufacture diesel hydraulic locomotives. 1959 saw a further joint company, Primapax, which made, hired and sold vending machines. During the late 1950s the British government decided that the number of aircraft manufacturers should be decreased as the number of contracts being offered was being reduced. As a result of this Hawker Siddeley merged all of its aviation interests, Hawker, Avro, Gloster, Armstrong Whitworth and Armstrong Siddeley, into a single division, Hawker Siddeley Aviation during October 1958. In 1959 it also merged its aircraft engine business, Armstrong Siddeley, with Bristol Aero Engines to form Bristol Siddeley Engines. The group also acquired Folland Aircraft and in 1960 purchased both the de Havilland Aircraft Company and the Blackburn Group. By 1961 the Hawker Siddeley Group was made up of 3 major operational groups, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Industries and A.V. Roe Canada. Avro Canada would be dissolved in 1962 due to the cancellation of the Avro Arrow aircraft with its remaining assets being transferred to Hawker Siddeley Canada. The new company focused on the manufacture of railway vehicles, subway cars and trams. In 1963 the group underwent a further restructuring as the names of its constituent companies were dropped in favour of a single Hawker Siddeley branding. As a result, the company’s products were rebranded with a HS number in place of their previous number. During 1968 the group expanded further by acquiring Crompton Parkinson, which was later combined with Brook Motors, when they acquired this company in 1970, to form Brook Crompton. On 29th April 1977 the Hawker Siddeley Group underwent a major change when, as a result of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act, its Aviation and Dynamics groups were nationalised and merged with the British Aircraft Corporation and Scottish Aviation to form British Aerospace. Despite this loss of its aviation interests, they only accounted for 25% of the group’s business and as such it was able reorganise its remaining interests in a holding company, Hawker Siddeley Group PLC. The decision was taken to focus this group on railway engineering, industrial electronics and signalling equipment. During the 1980s the Hawker Siddeley Group continued to expand, acquiring Carlton Industries between 1981 and 1984, and GEC Small Machines Company and GEC Alsthom Electromotes in 1989. This success made the group a target for a hostile takeover by the BTR conglomerate and in November 1991 they acquired it for £1.5 billion. The Hawker Siddeley name continued to be used in the group’s switchgear division which was later sold to FKI and later Melrose PLC.

British Aerospace, often abbreviated to BAe, was an aerospace and defence company formed on 29th April 1977. This was a result of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act which merged the British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation into a nationalised company. The new company controlled a large part of the British aviation industry and was the largest defence contractor in Europe. In 1979 the company joined the Airbus consortium, acquiring a 20% share. The British government had previously withdrawn from this project although Hawker Siddeley had continued to be involved as a contractor producing wings for their aircraft. In 1981 the company underwent a major restructuring. On 1st January the statutory corporation was transferred to a limited company and this was reregistered as British Aerospace PLC. It was then gradually privatised as 51.6% of the shares were sold to the public in February with the remaining 48.4% being sold in May 1985. Despite this the British government retained a single golden share that gave them the power to block foreign control of the company. Also during 1985 BAe would be the primary contractor for the Al-Yamamah arms deal. During the late 1980s British Aerospace would become involved in serval joint ventures and acquired a number of companies which diversified its operations away from aircraft manufacturing. The first of these was undertaken in cooperation with Alenia Aeronautica, Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG to form Eurofighter GmBH which would go on to develop the Eurofighter Typhoon. During 1991 it would also form another joint venture with the Sema Group to form a naval defence company, BAeSEMA. The company would also acquire Royal Ordnance on 22nd April 1987, the Rover Group in 1988, Heckler and Koch in 1991 and 30% share in Hutchison Telecommunications. Despite the expansion undertaken during the 1980s BAe would begin to suffer some difficulties during the early 1990s as its property company struggled, Rover sales dropped and the British government undertook a defence spending review. As a result the decision was taken to divest the company of its non-aerospace or defence activities. As a result in 1993 BAE Corporate Jets Ltd and Arkansas Aerospace Inc were sold to Raytheon and in 1994 the Rover Group was sold to BMW whist British Aerospace Space Systems were sold to Matra Marconi Space. As well as this in 1998 it reduced its shareholding in Orange to 5% and acquired the UK operations of Siemens Plessey Systems from Siemens AG. By the late 1990s the consolidation of defence companies was becoming a major issues especially in Europe. The formation of Lockheed Martin and the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas put serious pressure on European companies to consolidate their operations. Initially it was thought that BAe would merge with DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG but this was put on hold when it emerged that GEC was selling its defence electronics business, Marconi Electronic Systems. It was believed that this may be acquired by an American company. As a result the decision was taken to merge this company with British Aerospace forming a company that was initially known as New British Aerospace. The new company would be formed on 30th November 1999 under the name BAE Systems.

Matra Marconi Space was an aerospace company that was a jointly owned by the British General Electric Company (GEC) Group and the French Lagardere Group. Both of these larger companies merged their space and communications divisions, Marconi Space Systems and Matra Espace respectively, to form the new company in 1990. Claude Goumy of Matra was made the first Managing Director with Richard Wignall of Marconi as his deputy. In 1994 the company would acquire British Aerospace Space Systems and Ferranti Satcomms. 1997 would see the company’s Filton site close with some of the personnel being transferred to their Stevenage site and in 1999 British Aerospace would acquire Marconi Electronic Systems from GEC. This would create BAe Systems which replaced GEC as a joint owner of Matra Marconi Space. In 2000 the company merged with the space division of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (DASA) to form Astrium.

EADS Astrium was a satellite manufacturer and subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, EADS later Airbus. It was formed, as Astrium, in 2000 by the merger of Matra Marconi Space, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Computadoras, Redes e Ingeniería. The new company was a joint venture between EADS and BAE Systems until 2003 when the British company sold its stake. This led to the company being reorganised to become EADS Astrium with EADS as its sole shareholder. In 2004 CASA Espacio became part of the company. During 2013 Cassidian and Airbus Military were merged with EADS Astrium during a reorganisation of EADS. This led to the creation of Airbus Defence and Space within the newly created Airbus Group.

Airbus SE began operations as a company on 10th July 2000 but its history began with a July 1967 agreement between ministers from France, Germany and Britain. This was signed ‘for the purpose of strengthening European co-operation in the field of aviation technology and thereby promoting economic and technological progress in Europe, to take appropriate measures for the joint development and production of an airbus’. It also aimed to prevent Europe falling behind America as there was a fear that European companies cold become simply subcontractors to American ones and European airlines would be dependent on the US for aircraft. Such a fear was partly based on the fact that at this time several companies were simultaneously developing their own designs for aircraft, none of which would sell enough to be viable if they were all produced. Therefore, a join program was formed to develop and produce a new aircraft that could capitalise on the boom in popular air travel, especially on short haul routes, under the A300 name. The development process would begin with the appointment of Roger Beteille as technical director of the program in July 1967 and the signing of a memorandum of agreement in September 1967, which established Sud-Aviation as the lead company. Despite several issues prior to the launch of the A300 program in May 1969, including Rolls Royce being unable to develop the new engines required for the initial design, claims that a twin engine would not be space and Britain’s withdrawal in December 1968, it would continue and a consortium was formed on 18th December 1970. The ownership of the new consortium, known as Airbus industrie GIE, Groupement d’interet economique or Economic Interest Group, was split between Aerospatiale, which has absorbed Sub-Aviation, and Deutsche Airbus, which was a group including of Messerschmittwerke, Hamburger Flugzeubau, VFW GmBH and Siebelwerke ATG. This was adjusted in 1971 when CASA acquired a 4.2% share. The production for the group would be divided between its parent companies with France producing the cockpit, flight control and the lower centre section of the fuselage, West Germany producing the forward and rear fuselage sections, Dutch manufacturers produced the flaps and spoilers, Spain producing the horizontal tail plane and Hawker Siddeley, who remined a subcontractor despite the withdrawal of Britain, produced the wings. The first test flight of the A300 occurred on 28th October 1972 and it entered service on 23rd May 1974. Despite the new design’s lower operating costs, which had become increasingly important due to the oil crisis, sales were initially slow, and an aggressive marketing approach was required. During 1978 an additional model was produced, the A310, which was smaller than the original A300. In 1979 British Aerospace acquired a 20% in the Airbus consortium. As a result, Aerospatiale and Deutsche Airbus’ shares were reduced to 37.9% whilst CASA’s remined at 4.2%. BAe would also takeover responsibility for wing production after having absorbed Hawker Siddeley. During the 1980s, as well as introducing the A320, A330 and A340 designs which shared a number of common features to allow for quick cross qualification, Airbus also introduced a number of technological advances. One of these was the forward facing crew cockpit which allowed aircraft to be operated without a flight engineer. The second was a computer drive digital ‘fly-by wire’ system which meant that the flying control surfaces were no longer controlled by the pilot’s controls but rather by a computer which calculated what was required to make the aircraft respond to the pilot’s wishes. This also replaced the control column with a sidestick control. The 1990s would see additional designs being introduced by Airbus, the A321, A319, A340-200 and A318, which resulted in a range that went from short haul to ultra-long haul. Beyond this development work began on what was then known as the A3XX project which was aimed at producing a double decker aircraft capable of carrying 600 passengers on long distance routes. The consortium’s production had also continued to expand up to this point, with it receiving materials from 16 manufacturing sites across Europe and producing its 1,000th aircraft in 1994. As a result of this by 1998 Airbus had captured 50% of the airliner market. Also, by the 1990s it had become accepted that if Airbus was to continue to expand its structure would have to be streamlined and placed on a conventional company footing. At the time the various companies involved in the consortium were acting both as suppliers and shareholders, and it was therefore hoped to create a single integrated company. This was done with the merger of Aerospatiale-Matra, which had been formed when Aerospatiale had been privatised and merged with Matra, Daimler Chrysler Aerospace and CASA to form the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. This took ownership of 80% of the new Airbus company, Airbus SAS, with the remaining 20% being held by BAE Systems. The new company began operations on 10th July 2000 and would be the 2nd largest aerospace company and Europe’s 2nd largest arms manufacturer. Also due to these mergers the new company would also become the sole owner of the Eurocopter Group, which it merged with the helicopter business of CASA. Following Airbus’ reorganisation, it continued to expand with a new engineering centre being established in Wichita, a joint venture in Russia and its 3,000 aircraft, which was built in July 2002. The 19th December 2000 would also see the A3XX project being launched under the A380 name. On 16th June 2003 the company would become the sole owner of Astrium, the satellite manufacturer, which was renamed EADS Astrium with divisions relating to satellites, space transportation and services. 2004 would see further developments, as in May the A380 assembly line would open and in December the A350 was launched, while 2005 would see the first flight of the A380 and the establishment of a new engineering centre in Tianjin, China. On 13th October 2006 EADS would become the sole owner of Airbus when BAE System sold its 20% share of the company. The same year would see the launch of the A350XWB, extra wide body, and in 2007 the first A380 was delivered. This year would also see the Power8 restructuring of the company which hoped to cut costs and change the business model. Soon after this, in 2009, the first Airbus aircraft constructed outside of Europe, an A320 produced at the Tianjin facility, made its first flight. 2010 saw Airbus produce its 6,000th aircraft and also announced a new engine option, neo, for its A319, A320 and A321 models. This would allow them to be delivered with newer, more fuel efficient engines. Following years would see the opening of the production facility for the A350XWB, 2012, and the first delivery of the A400M military transport, 2013. In January 2014 there was a reorganisation when European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company was renamed Airbus Group NV. This new company was established with 3 divisions, Airbus Commercial Aircraft, Airbus Defence and Space, and Airbus Helicopters, which had previously been the Eurocopter Group. On 27th May 2015 the company was registered as an European Company, SE. In 2017 a further reorganisation occurred when Airbus Group announced it would merge with its largest division, Airbus Commercial Aircraft, to form a single company, to be known as Airbus SE. The new structure of the company would see two subsidiaries, Airbus Helicopters and Airbus Space and Defence, and would come into force on 1st January 2017. The name was official changed at the annual meeting on 12st April 2017. The same year would also see a partnership with Bombardier Aerospace to produce the C series aircraft. This would be split 50% Airbus, 31% Bombardier and 19% was held by the Quebec government. A further partnership was also announced in November, this time with Rolls Royce and Siemens, which was aimed at producing the E-Fan X hybrid aircraft. In 2018 Airbus acquired a majority stake in the C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership which manufactured and sold Bombardier’s C series jets, the CS100 and CS300. With Bombardier’s withdrawal from the commercial aviation sector in February 2020 this became Airbus Canada Limited Partnership with ownership being split between Airbus, 75%, and the Government of Quebec, 25%. The C series aircraft were also renamed A220-100 and A220-300.