Aerospace companies in Dallas-Fort Worth: a few giant plants, a long supplier tail, and how to vet one

This report is for three kinds of reader: buyers and engineers looking for an aerospace supplier or partner in North Texas, people weighing a job at one of the region's plants, and B2B sellers whose customers are aerospace manufacturers.

Dallas-Fort Worth aerospace in Census data

The figures are from County Business Patterns 2023 for NAICS 3364 (Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing) in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metro Area (CBSA 19100). NAICS 3364 covers aircraft, engines, aircraft parts, guided missiles and space vehicles.

An average of 433.6 employees per establishment is extraordinary for a local industry: Chicago's trucking companies, for comparison, average 5.2. It tells you a few very large sites are pulling the average up. The six-digit industry codes in the same dataset show where:

The last row is worked out by subtraction, because the Census Bureau doesn't publish those three codes separately for the metro; the Bureau warns that figures derived this way aren't official and can be off, so treat it as approximate. Aircraft manufacturing alone has 70% of the jobs, while the 38 parts makers average about 90 employees each. Those parts makers are the supplier tier most buyers and sellers deal with.

A few giant sites and a tail of small shops

In broader bands: 29 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 22 have 20 to 99, and 19 have 100 or more.

You can bound how the jobs split. Even if every establishment under 100 employees sat at the top of its size class, together they would employ at most 1,794 people, leaving at least 28,555 jobs (94%) in the 19 with 100 or more.

Where they are: Tarrant County first

Collin County's employee count is withheld by the Census Bureau to protect confidentiality. The four counties hold 63 of the 70 establishments; the other 7 are spread across the rest of the metro. Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth and Arlington, has 53% of the establishments and 73.6% of the jobs, at about 604 employees per site. Dallas County averages about 390, and Denton about 140.

The anchor companies, from public sources

The Texas Economic Development and Tourism Office's 2025 industry report says the Dallas-Fort Worth metro is "anchored by heavyweights like Lockheed Martin, Bell, L-3 Communications, Boeing and Bombardier." The same report lists maintenance, repair and overhaul operations in the region, including Lockheed Sustainment Operations (Fort Worth), Gulfstream (Dallas and Fort Worth), Pratt & Whitney (Grand Prairie), and Bombardier, StandardAero, Textron Aviation and BBA Aviation's Dallas Airmotive, each with a Dallas site. It notes that Bell opened a 47,000 square foot weapon systems integration lab in Arlington in 2024, a capital investment of nearly $430 million tied to the Army's Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft.

In July 2025 the governor's office announced that Collins Aerospace, part of RTX, would expand aerospace production and product development in Richardson, with more than 570 new jobs and more than $57 million of capital investment, supported by a $3,718,000 Texas Enterprise Fund grant.

Job hunters will find most roles at the 19 large establishments. The $128,290 average pay blends engineers, assemblers and managers.

What the count leaves out

County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees, not companies: a manufacturer with two Fort Worth plants counts twice, and self-employed owners with no staff aren't counted. It also sorts each site by its main activity, which matters a lot here:

• Routine aircraft maintenance and repair is classed under support activities for air transportation (NAICS 488190), so many repair stations aren't in the 70, although factory overhaul and conversion work is.
• Avionics and guidance systems are usually NAICS 334511, machine shops making aerospace parts are often NAICS 332710, and engineering firms are NAICS 541330.
• Airlines are air transportation, not manufacturing.

So the supplier base is larger than 70. Employment is for the week of March 12, 2023.

How to vet an aerospace supplier in North Texas

1. Check the quality certificate. Most aerospace buyers expect AS9100. Ask for the certificate and confirm it in the IAQG's OASIS database, which offers free public accounts.
2. Ask for FAA approvals where they apply. A shop repairing aircraft parts should hold a Part 145 repair station certificate; one selling replacement parts into the civil market needs a production approval such as a Parts Manufacturer Approval. Get the certificate number and confirm it with the FAA.
3. Confirm ITAR registration for defense work. Under 22 CFR 122.1, anyone in the US who manufactures defense articles must register with the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, even if it never exports. Ask for the registration letter.
4. Ask about CMMC. If the work involves controlled unclassified information, the supplier needs the CMMC level your contract specifies. Phase 1 began when the DFARS rule took effect on 10 November 2025; from Phase 2, a year later, DoD intends to require third-party Level 2 certification on applicable contracts.
5. Look up the federal record. SAM.gov shows a contractor's registration, CAGE code and NAICS codes; USAspending shows its federal awards by place of performance.
6. Confirm Texas standing with the Comptroller's franchise tax account status search, then call two customer references.

Selling to Dallas-Fort Worth aerospace companies

At the large plants, procurement runs through a supplier portal and an approved-supplier list, so get qualified first, then find the program or commodity buyer. Small suppliers buy faster, with one or two people deciding everything. For the large sites, see how to find decision makers; for the federal side, see selling to government.

Timing matters: the federal fiscal year starts on 1 October, CMMC Phase 2 on 10 November 2026, and new programs such as Bell's Arlington lab bring hiring and facility spending.

Illustrative example. The seller, its prices and its win rate are invented; the counts are from Census data.

Trinity Readiness (trinityready.example), a three-person consultancy in Arlington, prepares small defense suppliers for CMMC Level 2 assessments. The Census count gives it 51 aerospace establishments under 100 employees in the metro. If half handle controlled unclassified information, that's about 25 accounts, and a 20% win rate at $35,000 a project is 5 projects, or $175,000. A list that short rewards research over volume, so Trinity widens it with SAM.gov searches for machine shops and electronics makers in Tarrant and Dallas counties, then reads each one's contract history before writing. Bebop finds companies that match a description like "AS9100 machine shops in Tarrant County supplying rotorcraft programs" and explains why each fits.

Subject: [company] and CMMC Level 2 after 10 November

Hi [first name],

I saw [company] supplies [part or process] for [program or prime], and that you're registered in SAM.gov under [NAICS code].

From 10 November, DoD intends to require third-party Level 2 certification on applicable contracts. Most shops your size find the gap is in documentation, not technology.

We run a fixed-fee readiness review for Fort Worth and Dallas suppliers and leave you with the evidence an assessor asks for. Worth 15 minutes on [day] to see where [company] stands?

[Your name]

Local sources

Next step: see how aerospace fits the region's wider business base in the report on companies based in Dallas.