Sud Aviation was a French state-owned aircraft manufacturer, originating from the merger of Sud-Est (SNCASE, or Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du sud-est) and Sud-Ouest (SNCASO or Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du sud-ouest) on 1 March 1957. Both companies had themselves been formed from smaller privately owned corporations that had been nationalized into six regional design and manufacturing pools just prior to World War II.
The new firm then started on the design of a supersonic transport version of the Caravelle, known as the Super-Caravelle. However, the projected cost of the project was so high that Sud Aviation, at the direction of the French and British governments, formed a consortium with BAC in November 1962 to merge their design and production efforts to create the Concorde.
1970 Sud Aviation merged with Nord Aviation and Société d'études et de réalisation d'engins balistiques (SÉREB) in 1970 to form the Aérospatiale company. Aérospatiale formed several large-scale international consortia, for example with British Aerospace and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm to form Airbus
2000 Ultimately Aérospatiale merged into the European aerospace company EADS.
In January 2014, EADS was reorganised as Airbus Group.