General Electric Co., the biggest jet-engine maker, agreed to buy Smiths Group Plc’s aerospace unit for $4.8 billion as rising demand for travel drives record sales of commercial aircraft at Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS.

The purchase will broaden GE’s offerings for airline and military customers, including computers that control planes in flight, Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE said today in a statement. Shares of London-based Smiths rose 11% as it plans to return 2.1 billion pounds ($4.12 billon) to shareholders.

Chief executive officer Jeffrey Immelt wants to tap a quadrupling in demand for civil planes in the past five years as well as plans by the U.S. military to develop new aircraft. The purchase would give GE some products, such as cockpit electronics, the company didn’t get when the European Union rejected its $45 billion bid for Honeywell International Inc. in 2001.

“This is clearly Immelt taking the step to become a consolidator in the aerospace equipment business,” an aerospace analyst at Mainfirst AG in London, Will Mackie, said. “GE already has the engines business, and this is a step to diversify into airframes and control.”