Avro International Aerospace was a British aircraft manufacturer formed in 1993 by

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

to consolidate production of the

British Aerospace 146 The British Aerospace 146 (also BAe 146) is a short-haul and regional airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2001. Manufacture by Avro International ...

Woodford Aerodrome Woodford Aerodrome is a former airfield and aircraft factory at Woodford, Greater Manchester, England, north of Macclesfield. It was opened by the Avro company after the First World War and became an important production centre for military ...

near Manchester. The company produced new variants of the 146 with updated engines and avionics as the Avro RJ70, Avro RJ85 and Avro RJ100 regional jets. British Aerospace decided to split out some of its commercial aircraft activities into separate businesses and as a result Avro International was created, using the name of a predecessor company

Avro AVRO, short for Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep ("General Association of Radio Broadcasting"), was a Dutch public broadcasting association operating within the framework of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep system. It was the first public broad ...

. The company was to be set up as a 50/50 joint venture with the Taiwan Aerospace Corporation, which was to inject £120 million into the new company. It was the intention to set up a second production line in Taiwan but in the end the finance was not available and the deal collapsed. British Aerospace decided to continue without outside investment due to the cost savings realised with the closure of the BAe 146 production line at

Hatfield Aerodrome Hatfield Aerodrome was a private airfield and aircraft factory located in the English town of Hatfield in Hertfordshire from 1930 until its closure and redevelopment in the 1990s. Early history Geoffrey de Havilland, pioneering aircraft desig ...

and the consolidation of production at Woodford. In 1995 an agreement was signed to create a multi-national consortium named

Aero International (Regional) Aero is a Greek prefix relating to flight and air. In British English, it is used as an adjective related to flight (e.g., as a shortened substitute for aeroplane). Aero, Ærø, or Aeros may refer to: Aeronautics Airlines and companies * Aero (P ...

(AI(R)) with the Franco-Italian Avions de Transport Regional (ATR) in 1996, to be based at Toulouse. As well as Avro it would also include the other British Aerospace regional aircraft division "Jetstream Aircraft" of Prestwick;Ross Tieman, Industrial Correspondent. "BAe joins regional aircraft venture." Times ondon, England7 June 1995: 26. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. Avro would continue to build the regional jet family at Woodford but they would be marketed under the AIR branding. AI(R) was disbanded only two years later.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{refend Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United Kingdom