Short Brothers opened a factory in Belfast just before the start of World War II in partnership with Harland and Wolff. The factory opened in 1937 at Sydenham Belfast. In its heyday, 1939–45, it employed around 14000 workers and built all kinds of military aircraft for the Royal Airforce. One of the most well-known planes was the Short Sunderland, a flying boat patrol bomber. It also built the Stirling bomber. In the late 1930s Shorts built the Empire airliner, which set the standard for international travel. After the war Shorts continued to make military aircraft, but as times changed it began to focus more on passenger and cargo planes. Short Brothers was taken over by Bombardier, a French-Canadian aerospace company, in 1989. In 2020 it was sold to Spirit AeroSystems of the United States.