Aerospace companies in Los Angeles: the country's deepest bench of parts makers, mapped and sized

This report is for engineers and buyers looking for an aerospace supplier in Southern California, people deciding where to work, and B2B sellers who need to know how big the Los Angeles market really is and where to start.

Los Angeles aerospace by the numbers

US Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, NAICS 3364 (Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metro Area (CBSA 31080):

The metro is two counties, and they're different markets:

Los Angeles County holds the large plants, from the South Bay to Palmdale in the Antelope Valley. Orange County is mostly mid-size parts and components makers.

A parts makers' market

The six-digit industry codes show what the 202 establishments make:

"Not reported (high-noise)" means the Census Bureau published the figure but flagged that its confidentiality noise moved it by 5% or more. For scale, Dallas-Fort Worth has 38 establishments in the aircraft parts code; Los Angeles has 124. Space is the other story: 33 establishments make missiles, space vehicles, propulsion or their parts.

The size ladder

That's 82 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 64 with 20 to 99 and 56 with 100 or more. Even if every site under 100 sat at the top of its size class, they'd employ 5,279 people between them, so at least 26,710 jobs (83%) are in the 56 larger sites. The 64 mid-size shops are the tier where most supplier searches end up.

What the count leaves out

CBP counts establishments with paid employees, not companies, and classes each by its main activity. Several big pieces of Los Angeles aerospace sit in other codes in the same dataset:

• Navigation, guidance and avionics makers (NAICS 334511): 48 establishments and 11,650 employees in the metro, about as many jobs as the aircraft parts makers.
• Machine shops (NAICS 332710): 899 establishments and 11,788 employees, many of them second-tier aerospace suppliers.
• Support activities for air transportation, including much routine repair (NAICS 488190): 144 establishments.

Where the primes work

The large employers' own 10-K filings for fiscal 2025 name their Los Angeles area sites. Northrop Grumman lists El Segundo and Palmdale for Aeronautics Systems; Azusa, Carson, Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach for Space Systems; Woodland Hills for Mission Systems; and Northridge for Defense Systems. Lockheed Martin lists Palmdale for Aeronautics. Boeing lists Greater Los Angeles as a major location for Commercial Airplanes and for Defense, Space & Security. California's economic development office (GO-Biz) adds the US Space Systems Command at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

Three listed aerospace companies have their headquarters in the metro, each confirmed on its latest 10-K cover page:

Federal contracts performed here

USAspending shows $4.20 billion of federal contract obligations in fiscal 2025 coded to aerospace manufacturing (NAICS 3364) with Los Angeles or Orange County as the place of performance, more than half of California's $7.84 billion. The Department of Defense obligated $3.73 billion and NASA $459.7 million. The largest recipients named in the record:

Obligations follow the place of performance the contract records, and subcontracts aren't counted, so the hundreds of parts makers feeding these programs mostly don't appear.

How to shortlist a parts supplier in Southern California

1. Start from the process, not the name. Write down the part family, material, process (five-axis machining, composites, sheet metal, special processes) and the program's flowdowns.
2. Confirm the AS9100 certificate in the IAQG's OASIS database, including the site address and scope.
3. Match the FAA approval to the job. Replacement parts sold into the civil aftermarket need a Parts Manufacturer Approval under 14 CFR Part 21, subpart K; repair work needs a repair station certificate under Part 145. Ask for the certificate number and check it with the FAA.
4. Check defense readiness. Manufacturers of defense articles must register under ITAR (22 CFR 122.1), and from 10 November 2026 DoD intends to require third-party CMMC Level 2 certification on applicable contracts.
5. Confirm the entity in California's bizfile search and its federal record on SAM.gov.

Prospecting Los Angeles aerospace companies

Illustrative example. The seller, its fees and its conversion rates are invented; the counts are from Census data.

Basin Talent Partners (basintalent.example), a five-person recruiting firm in Torrance, places CNC machinists, quality inspectors and manufacturing engineers. Its target list is the 64 mid-size suppliers plus the 33 sites with 100 to 249 employees, 97 accounts. If a fifth hire through an agency each year and Basin wins one placement from each at a $14,000 fee, that's about 19 placements and $266,000. It segments by county (Orange County shops hire differently from the South Bay plants) and by code, because a parts maker and a space startup want different people. Bebop builds the list from a plain description and explains why each company fits.

Subject: Inspectors for [company]'s [process] line

Hi [first name],

[Company] makes [part family] for [program or customer], and you're hiring for [role] on your careers page.

We place CMM inspectors and CNC machinists with AS9100 shops between Torrance and Irvine, and most of our candidates have worked to the same flowdowns you do.

If it helps, I can send three profiles that match [role] this week. Worth a look?

[Your name]

Local sources

For the statewide picture, see aerospace companies in California.

Next step: see how aerospace fits the region's broader base in the report on manufacturing companies in Los Angeles.