The global aircraft industry encompasses a vast network of companies working either as large international conglomerates or as individual national and regional organizations. The two biggest international aircraft manufacturers are the American owned Boeing Aircraft Company and the European conglomerate, European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), which incorporates airbus industries. These, together with the American giant Lockheed-Martin, BAE Systems and aerospace propulsion companies, such as Rolls-Royce and Pratt and Whitney, employ many thousands of people and have annual turnovers totalling billions of pounds. For example, the recently won Lockheed-Martin contract for the American Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is estimated to be worth 200 billion dollars, over the next 10 years! A substantial part of this contract will involve BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and other UK companies.
The airlines and armed forces of the world who buy-in aircraft and services from aerospace manufacturers are themselves, very often, large organizations. For example British Airways our own national carrier, even after recent downsizing, employs around 50,000 personnel. UK airlines, in the year 2000, employed in total, just over 12,000 aircraft maintenance and overhaul personnel. Even after the events that took place on 11th September 2001, the requirement for maintenance personnel is unlikely to fall. A recent survey by the Boeing Corporation expects to see the demand for aircraft and their associated components and systems rise by 2005, to the level of orders that existed prior to the tragic events of 11th September 2001.
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