A family tree of famous names

Walk the line of BAE Systems’ ancestors and you walk the history of British aviation. A.V. Roe and the Lancaster. De Havilland and the Comet, the first jet airliner. Supermarine and the Spitfire. Hawker Siddeley and the Harrier jump jet. The British Aircraft Corporation, which built Concorde with the French. Add Marconi, the first company devoted to radio, and shipyards that built the Royal Navy’s first destroyers and submarines. All of it flowed, through decades of mergers, into one company formed on 30 November 1999. Today BAE Systems is the largest defence contractor in Europe and among the half-dozen largest in the world.

The merger that went the other way

It nearly happened quite differently. In 1998 British Aerospace was deep in talks to merge with Germany’s DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and build a pan-European giant. Then, on 22 December 1998, the General Electric Company put its defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems, up for sale. British Aerospace chairman Richard Evans feared an American rival would snap it up, and abandoned the German deal to buy his British rival for £7.7 billion. The Germans merged with Aérospatiale instead to form EADS, today’s Airbus. BAE inherited a UK government golden share that bars any foreign party from holding more than 15 per cent of the company.

Typhoon and Hawk

In the air, BAE’s two signature aircraft are the Hawk and the Typhoon. The Hawk trainer first flew in 1974 as a Hawker Siddeley design and has since passed 1,000 built, flown by 18 operators and, since 1979, by the RAF’s Red Arrows; a new Hawk order from the UK in 2003 helped close a deal for 66 for India. The Typhoon, built with Airbus and Leonardo through the Eurofighter consortium, first flew on 27 March 1994 and entered service in 2003. By January 2025, 609 production aircraft had been built, with British jets assembled at Warton. A 20-aircraft order from Türkiye worth £4.6 billion followed in 2025.

Al Yamamah: oil for aircraft

No contract shaped BAE more than Al Yamamah, the Dove. Signed with Saudi Arabia in September 1985 and paid for in crude oil — up to 600,000 barrels a day delivered to the British government — it brought Tornados, Hawks and later 72 Typhoons. In 2005 the then chief executive said BAE and its predecessor had earned £43 billion from it in 20 years. It also brought years of bribery allegations. In 2006 the Serious Fraud Office dropped its investigation under Saudi pressure, which the High Court later ruled unlawful, and in February 2010 BAE agreed to pay a $400 million criminal fine in the United States plus £30 million in Britain over overseas dealings.

Turning west

From 2004 the company turned decisively towards America. Chairman Dick Olver’s review set a strategic bias for US expansion: BAE bought United Defense, maker of the Bradley vehicle, and Armor Holdings, and in 2024 completed its largest acquisition, Ball Aerospace, for $5.6 billion. It sold out of Airbus in 2006 and out of Saab, with which it had built and marketed the Gripen, from 2010. A planned merger with EADS collapsed in October 2012 over German concerns. Today the United States is BAE’s biggest market, ahead of Britain and Saudi Arabia, and the UK supplies around 15 per cent of the value of every F-35, mainly through BAE.

The last British airliner, the next British fighter

BAE has also closed chapters. In November 2001 it shut the Avro RJ line at Woodford; the last RJ completed was the last British civil airliner. The Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft, £789 million over budget and nine years late, was cancelled in 2010; from January 2011 its fuselages were scrapped at Woodford behind screens, while a BBC helicopter filmed overhead. But the Taranis stealth drone flew in 2013, and BAE is now one of three prime partners, with Leonardo and Japan’s JAIEC, in the Global Combat Air Programme that is meant to replace the Typhoon from 2035. In 2025 the company reported record sales of £30.7 billion and an order backlog of £83.6 billion.

Fabrieken

• Warton · Warton, Lancashire — Typhoon final assembly and flight test; Hawk 128 first flight
• Samlesbury · Samlesbury, Lancashire — One of BAE’s UK aircraft sites
• Brough · Brough, East Yorkshire — Hawk production until 2020
• Woodford · Woodford, Greater Manchester — Former Avro site; Avro RJ and Nimrod MRA4 work; closed 2011–2012

Mensen

• Richard Evans · chairman, British Aerospace and BAE Systems — Chose Marconi over DASA in 1999
• John Weston · first chief executive, 1999–2002 — Ousted in a boardroom coup in 2002
• Mike Turner · chief executive 2002–2008
• Dick Olver · chairman from 2004 — Set the strategic bias towards the United States
• Ian King · chief executive 2008–2017
• Charles Woodburn · chief executive since July 2017

Records en primeurs

• Al Yamamah: Britain’s largest ever export agreement
• Largest defence contractor in Europe and sixth-largest in the world by 2024 revenue
• Record 2025 sales of £30.7 billion and backlog of £83.6 billion
• Ball Aerospace, completed February 2024, its largest acquisition