Sluggish demand across the business aircraft sector contributed to
a $44 million fall in revenues for Textron Aviation to $1.15 billion for the
three months ended 30 September.
Third-quarter financial results, issued by parent
company Textron on 19 October, show that the Wichita-headquartered airframer
delivered 24 King Air turboprops, down from 29 during the same period last
year; Cessna Citation business jet shipments remained flat over the same period
at 41 units.
Speaking during an earnings call, Textron chief
executive Scott Donnelly described the output as “a little bit light”. While
turboprops were the worst performers over the period, he suggests the
deliveries were “considerably stronger than they were in the first couple of
quarters”, thanks to growing international demand.
“While it’s not what we delivered a year ago, [there
was] a lot more sales and order activity than we’ve seen for a while. So that
bodes well,” says Donnelly.
He insists the company will stick to its firm line
on pricing, to maintain the profitability of Citation, King Air and Caravan
lines – even if this results in lower production output. “It’s a tough line to
hold in this market,” he admits.
The order backlog climbed by $142 million in the
quarter to $1.2 billion, while the book-to-bill ratio – or the number of orders
against deliveries – stood at 1.1:1.
For the nine months ended 30 September, King Air and
Citation output totalled 54 and 81 units respectively. This compares with 78 King
Airs and 120 Citations delivered during the same period in 2016.
(Evangle Luo of TTFLY shared with you)
没有评论:
发表评论