Market study provides details on aircraft manufacturing sector

Aside from divisions of a few large companies such as Honeywell and Northrop Grumman, few aircraft parts manufacturers have annual revenue in excess of $100 million, and the typical parts company has 150 employees and revenue of $25 million, according to an industry study done by Research and Markets. The full report, “Aircraft Parts Manufacture -- Industry Profile,” is available at www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c31165.

The report notes that there are approximately 1,500 companies in the United States that manufacture aircraft parts and they have combined annual revenues of $45 billion.

The production of aircraft engines continues to be dominated by General Electric Co. and Pratt Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Inc., which account for 80 percent of engine revenue.

The report says small companies can compete effectively by specializing in high-end, low-volume or hard-to-find parts, or in high production of low-priced commodity parts.

Large companies have economies of scale in production; volume leverage in negotiating with suppliers; and leeway in pricing to customers since they can often afford to lower margin to get the deal.

The profile claims that annual revenue per employee is about $200,000 at larger companies and $125,000 at smaller ones.