Textron Aviation saw a strong third quarter with revenue of $1.3 billion, a 14.7 percent year-over-year increase, according to results released Thursday morning during the company’s earnings call. The increase reflected a mix of higher volume ($89 million) and higher pricing ($82 million), the company said.
“At Aviation, we saw our strongest order quarter of the year with a 12 percent increase over the third quarter of 2022,” said Textron chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly. “Eventually, the industry has to get to [a book-to-bill of] 1:1. I don’t really think it can continue to exceed that much for that long, but obviously, our sales teams are out there and customer demand is what it is. We’re still seeing strong jet demand; we’re seeing it across all the turbo product lines, we’re seeing it virtually across all of our different aircraft types.”
For the quarter, the airframer delivered 39 Cessna jets, the same as last year’s tally, and 38 turboprops, an increase of five from last year’s this quarter. The OEM’s airplane backlog at the end of the quarter stood at $7.4 billion.
“There’s no question that right now we have customers that would like to see us have delivery dates earlier than what we’re able to promise them," said Donnelly. "Obviously, this adjustment that is going on is that, for a decade or so, customers could come in when they wanted to get a new aircraft and get something delivered in a very short period of time. That wasn’t true historically, and it's certainly not true today. Customers know what the order backlogs look like in the industry and people now realize that if you are thinking about your fleet planning, you are thinking about your current aircraft and when you are going to want to be doing an upgrade. You need to think about that being a couple of years out."
Donnelly noted that the company is still hindered by lingering supply chain pinch points, which were particularly evident in its Bell helicopter division. It delivered 23 helicopters in the third quarter, less than half the amount it did a year ago. Bell’s backlog currently amounts to $5.2 billion.
“The number of parts that come in late to PO [purchase order] has been declining through the course of the year…but it’s still a problem," he stated. "I wouldn’t say we have one big 'engine' that is driving this but as you get the end of the quarter, if you are missing parts for aircraft, you still can’t deliver that aircraft.”
Textron’s eAviation segment—led by electric training aircraft manufacturer Pipistrel—saw revenues of $7 million against a loss of $19 million in the third quarter of 2023, primarily related to research and development costs.