GE Aerospace - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• GE Aerospace delivered a strong Q1 2025: total orders $12.3B (+12%), GAAP revenue $9.94B (+11%), adjusted revenue $9.00B (+11%), adjusted EPS $1.49 (+60%), and operating margin 23.8% (+460 bps).
• Results beat S&P Global consensus: adjusted EPS $1.49 vs $1.27* and revenue $9.94B vs $9.05B*; strength was driven by commercial services (spare parts >20% growth, shop-visit revenue +11%) and tariff-offset actions noted on the call.
• 2025 guidance maintained (adjusted EPS $5.10–$5.45; operating profit $7.8–$8.2B; FCF $6.3–$6.8B), but assumptions updated: departures growth cut from mid-single digits to low-single digits and delayed spare engine deliveries amid tariff headwinds (~$500M net after actions).
• Key catalysts: pricing actions (catalog increases and temporary surcharge) to offset tariffs, acceleration in supplier material inputs (+8% sequential), LEAP durability kit already incorporated on Airbus shipments, and marquee orders (Korean Air GE9X/GEnx) supporting backlog.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Commercial services momentum: CES orders +15% to $9.58B, revenue +14% to $6.98B, operating profit +35% to $1.92B; spare parts revenue grew >20%, internal shop-visit revenue +11%.
• Execution and supply chain actions: “material input at priority supplier sites was up 8% sequentially… supported services revenue up 17%” and leadership emphasized FLIGHT DECK as the operating model to accelerate deliveries.
• Strategic wins and technology milestones: Korean Air selected GE9X/GEnx for its 777-9 and 787-10 fleet with associated service agreement; Catalyst turboprop achieved FAA certification, indicating performance and readiness for entry into service.
• Management tone: “strong start to 2025… orders and revenue up double digits… adjusted EPS up 60%” and confidence to maintain full-year guidance with a $140B+ commercial services backlog.

What Went Wrong

• Tariff impact and macro uncertainty: management expects roughly $500M tariff headwind after duty drawback and foreign-trade-zone actions; departures outlook trimmed to low-single digits for the year.
• Operational constraints: spare parts delinquency “up over 2x YoY,” internal shop slots full, total engine units down 6% with LEAP down 13% due to a slower start in January materials.
• Cash flow compression: CFOA down 5% YoY to $1.54B and FCF down 14% YoY to $1.44B on timing and investment needs.
• Defense modest growth: DPT revenue +1% to $2.32B while investment and inflation remain offsetting factors despite margin expansion to 12.7%.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the GE Aerospace first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. My name is Liz, and I will be your conference coordinator today. If you experience issues with the webcast slides refreshing or there appears to be delays in the slide advancement, please hit F5 on your keyboard to refresh. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the program over to your host for today's conference, Blaire Shore, from the GE Aerospace Investor Relations team. Please proceed.

Blaire Shoor (Head of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Liz. Welcome to GE Aerospace's first quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm joined by Chairman and CEO Larry Culp and CFO Rahul Ghai. Many of the statements we're making are forward-looking and based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. As described in our SEC filings and website, those elements may change as the world changes. Additionally, Larry and Rahul, consistent with prior quarters, will speak to total company and corporate financial results and guidance today on a non-GAAP basis. Larry, over to you.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Blaire, thanks, and good morning, everyone. While a lot has happened since January, we at GE Aerospace remain focused on our purpose. Our team works daily to invent the future of flight, lift people up, and bring them home safely. Those last four words ring true to us, given right now there are nearly a million people in the sky with our technology under wing. This is an incredible responsibility and one that we take very seriously. With safety at our core, we're advancing our vision to be the company that defines flight for today, tomorrow, and the future. Today, we're focused on service and readiness, keeping our customers' fleets flying. For tomorrow, we're delivering the ramp and executing our $170 billion-plus backlog.

For the future, we're advancing the technology that will define the future of flight across both commercial and defense, with approximately $3 billion in annual R&D spending. Flight Deck, our proprietary lean operating model, is how we translate that strategy into results. Launched a year ago, we're activating Flight Deck to deliver for our customers and create long-term value for our shareholders. Turning to the first quarter, GE Aerospace delivered a strong start to the year. Orders were up 12%, and revenue grew 11%, with double-digit growth in both services and equipment. Profit was $2.1 billion, up 38%, with contributions from both segments leading to margins of 23.8%. Overall, we delivered $1.49 of EPS, up 60% year-over-year, and free cash flow was $1.4 billion. In commercial engines and services, or CES, we're servicing and growing the industry's most extensive commercial installed base.

Services strength continued, with orders up 31% and revenue up 17%, driving total operating profit growth of 35% year-over-year. In defense and propulsion technologies, or DPT, we're improving the delivery of our leading defense programs while developing mission-critical technology. The first quarter was solid, with defense units growing 5% and profit increasing 16%. My thanks go out to all of our 53,000 employees around the world for delivering once again for our customers. Moving to slide five, GE Aerospace supports efforts to revitalize domestic manufacturing, and it's why we're investing $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing this year and hiring over 5,000 U.S. workers. At the same time, we support promoting free and fair trade that ensures the continued strength of the U.S. aerospace industry. Our industry has a nearly $75 billion trade surplus, the highest trade balance of any sector, and exports more than $135 billion of products each year.

This is possible because the global aviation sector has long operated without tariffs on civil aircraft, engines, and avionics. As the U.S. administration engages in discussions with its trade partners, we'll continue to advocate for an approach that reestablishes zero-for-zero tariffs in the aviation sector and ensures a level playing field for the U.S. aerospace industry. In the meantime, heightened tariffs will result in additional costs for us and our supply chain. We're leveraging available programs the administration is providing businesses, such as duty drawbacks, along with other strategies to optimize our operations, like expanding foreign trade zones. With those actions, we expect to reduce the tariff costs to roughly $500 million. We're taking additional actions to offset this remaining impact. This includes controlling costs while maintaining investments in key priorities and pricing actions. Departures remained favorable in the quarter, up 4% in line with our expectations.

Given strong orders growth over the last several quarters, our commercial services backlog has grown now to over $140 billion. We've had a lag in converting those orders to revenue, given the broader supply chain dynamics. Our spare parts delinquency continues to increase, unfortunately, up over two times year-over-year, and our internal shop visit slots are full with a healthy pipeline of engines which have been removed but not yet inducted into our shops. So far, second quarter departures are shaping up more or less in line with the first quarter. We're taking a more cautious approach and embedding a slower second half in our estimate, resulting in departures up low single digits for the full year. This includes a reduction in North American departures, which make up about 25% of the total.

To step back, while the broader environment is certainly uncertain, we are watching demand closely, and we're operating from a position of strength. The actions we're taking, combined with our robust backlog, position us well to maintain our full-year guidance. Shifting to slide six, we're focused on meeting the aftermarket NOE ramp to deliver for our customers. Demand continues to outpace supply, and we're utilizing Flight Deck to tackle supply chain constraints head-on. In the first quarter, material input at our priority supplier sites was up 8% sequentially, which supported CES services revenue up 17% year-over-year. While defense units were a bright spot up 5%, total engine units were down 6%, with LEAP down 13%. This was lighter than we expected from the slower start to material inputs in January and the lead times to complete new engines.

We drove significant improvement in material input in February and March, giving us confidence that we will accelerate output in the second quarter. In partnership with our suppliers, we're leveraging Flight Deck to deliver. Our priority suppliers continue to improve shipments against their committed targets, which increased both year-over-year and sequentially. In the first quarter, they delivered, shipping more than 95% of their committed volumes. Our new technology and operations organization has hit the ground running. In March, we hosted a supplier symposium to share our near and longer-term growth outlook across both services and OE. This helps our suppliers with required transparency and stability they need to make critical investments to support the ramp in a forum for discussing key challenges in doing so. Importantly, we know these joint efforts with our suppliers work.

Last quarter, we shared that a joint Kaizen with one of those priority suppliers achieved a 50% increase in output in just one week. Now, at the end of the first quarter, the same team has delivered a 3X increase quarter over quarter. Additionally, LEAP remains an important growth area, with the fleet expected to more than double by the end of the decade. We're continuing to expand capacity to support aftermarket demand. LEAP external shop visits grew over 60% in the first quarter, demonstrating the rapid growth in the third-party network. Also, all engine shipments to Airbus now incorporate the durability kit, including the upgraded HPT blade, which was approved back in December, and enables the LEAP-1A to achieve CFM56 levels of time on wing. We're also shipping those same blades to MRO shops to support upgrades of the existing fleet.

The upgraded HPT blades incorporate a simpler design, requiring less capacity, improving process yields, and ultimately supporting higher output. Critical additional benefits that will support achieving the 15%-20% growth in LEAP deliveries we expect in 2025. We're already seeing improvement in our overall output through April and remain confident we'll accelerate in 2025 and longer term. Turning to slide seven, in the first quarter, we saw continued demand for both our services and products. At CES, we secured multiple agreements for our customers' growing fleets. We secured engine commitments from ANA for both our narrow-body and wide-body platforms. They selected LEAP and GEnx engines to power 13 A321neos, up to 22 737 MAXes, and 18 787-9 aircraft as part of their fleet upgrade. Additionally, we received a commitment from Malaysia Aviation Group for 60 CFM LEAP engines, plus additional spares to power 30 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.

In the wide-body segment, Korean Air announced an agreement for up to 30 Boeing 787-10s and 20 777-9s with our GEnx and GE9X engines under wing. In DPT, defense budgets are increasing globally, and customers are selecting our leading programs. We received a contract from the U.S. Air Force valued up to $5 billion. This supports foreign military sales for the F110 engines, which power the F-15 and the F-16 aircraft operated by allies around the world. At the same time, we're strengthening our leadership position with continued investments. Starting with the RISE program, we recently completed a second endurance test campaign on the high-pressure turbine blades earlier in the development process than ever before. This demonstrated improved durability and fuel efficiency, key customer priorities for the future of flight. We also completed the initial ground runs for the T901 Engine on a U.S.

Army Black Hawk Helicopter, a major milestone toward delivering a more powerful mission-ready aircraft and one that puts us on a path to a flight test. Finally, we successfully completed the detailed design review for the XA102 Adaptive Cycle Engine, working toward production of a full-scale model. This is a critical milestone supporting the U.S. Air Force's next-generation adaptive propulsion program. We were also pleased to see President Trump's award of the F-47 and the administration's commitment to advance this important program. Our progress on advanced engines positioned us well with the administration's efforts to maintain military air superiority. Overall, we're focused on executing our sizable backlog while investing in the technology building blocks that will define the future of flight. Rahul, over to you.

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Thank you, Larry, and good morning, everyone. We started out 2025 with a strong first quarter marked by significant stop lines and EPS growth. Orders were up 12%, and revenue was up 11%, both led by commercial services. Profit was $2.1 billion, up $600 million or 38%, driven by services volume, favorable mix, and price. Margin expanded 460 basis points to 23.8%. EPS of $1.49 was up 60% from profit growth, a favorable tax rate, and a lower share count from buyback actions. Free cash flow was $1.4 billion, down 14% and in line with our expectations. Working capital was a source primarily from contract assets. Inventory increased to prepare for higher output and to tackle ongoing material availability challenges. This was partially offset by payables.

Given our operational and financial strength, we continue to expect to deploy over $8 billion of cash to shareholders in 2025 through dividends and buybacks. We remain well-positioned to drive significant shareholder returns while continuing to invest in growth, innovation, and focused M&A. Looking closer at our businesses, starting with CES, in the quarter, orders were up 15%, with services up 31%, while equipment was down 13%, given a tough compare. Revenue was up 14%, led by services up 17%. Spare parts revenue was up more than 20% from higher volume and price. Internal shop visit revenue grew 11% from higher shop visit output, increased work scopes, and wide-body mix. Equipment grew 9%, with favorable customer mix and price offsetting unit deliveries that were down 9%.

While still elevated, the spare engine ratio stepped down sequentially in line with expectations, and the LEAP life-of-program spare engine ratio remains in low double digits. Profit was $1.9 billion, up 35% from services volume, mix, and price. This more than offset inflation, increased R&D, and a year-over-year change in estimated profitability on long-term service agreements of approximately $100 million, primarily from the estimated impacts of tariffs. CES margins expanded 420 basis points to 27.5%. Overall, a very strong start for CES, largely driven by services. Moving to DPT, orders were flat year-over-year, with services up 14%, while equipment was down, given the significant growth in first quarter of last year. Defense demand remains robust, with a book-to-bill of 1.4X. Revenue grew 1%. Defense and systems revenue was flat. Defense unit growth of 5% and price were offset by lower services revenue. Propulsion and additive technologies grew 1%.

Services volume and price offset lower internal shipments from a planned lower start in equipment sales. Profit was up 16%, driven by customer mix, productivity, and price. This was partially offset by self-funding of next-generation investments and inflation. Margins improved 160 basis points to 12.7%. Stepping back, DPT delivered a better-than-expected first quarter. Shifting to corporate, cost, including eliminations, was about $70 million. This was down over 40% or approximately $55 million, mostly driven by expenses down roughly $40 million. Now, moving to our guidance on slide 11. First quarter exceeded expectations, given stronger spare parts sales and services mix, which would continue. We have a robust backlog supporting our growth for several years, and we're taking actions to offset the impact from tariffs and to help us in navigating the uncertainty in the environment. Operationally, we are performing better than we expected on the January earnings call.

Given the macroeconomic backdrop, we are holding our guidance across the board. Therefore, we continue to expect low double-digit revenue growth, profit of $7.8 billion-$8.2 billion, EPS of $5.10-$5.45, and free cash flow of $6.3 billion-$6.8 billion. We're also maintaining our segment guidance. Unpacking the moving pieces, we have included the following in our guidance. Recognizing the dynamic background, we are preparing for tariffs that could persist through year-end, with 10% tariffs remaining in place and then reciprocal tariffs resuming after the 90-day pause. As Larry mentioned, we expect roughly $500 million of cost after our operational actions to minimize the tariff impact. From there, we expect to primarily mitigate this remaining $500 million through SG&A cost controls and price increases. We are maintaining our R&D spend for the year.

Regarding the macro environment, given the ongoing uncertainty in the second half, we are adjusting some of our full-year expectations. We now expect low single-digit full-year departure growth, down from mid-single digits in January. Given the tariffs in place, we've reduced spare parts and spare engine sales for the year to that region. This demand is not foregone, as our customers in China still have needs for services and spare engines, but they may be delayed. We are maintaining our full-year spare parts guidance for low double-digit growth, given the stronger start to the year and nearly 90% of spare parts in backlog for second quarter. We expect minimal impact on internal shop visit revenue, which represents roughly 60% of our total services revenue, given our backlog, pent-up demand, and limited risk to shop visits pushing out. Overall, we continue to expect low double-digit to mid-teens services growth.

We have not factored in a slowdown in airframer delivery schedules, further tariff escalation, or a global recession into our guidance. We remain confident in our ability to deliver another year of strong results. With that, Larry, I'll turn it back to you.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Rahul, thank you. We're encouraged by our strong start, which, combined with the actions we're taking, puts us well on our way to achieving our full-year guide. CES is on track for another year of significant growth, and we expect continued solid performance at DPT. GE Aerospace has sustained competitive advantages. We have a diversified fleet of preferred platforms across the narrow-body, wide-body, and defense sectors. At the core of everything we do is safety, quality, delivery, and cost, always in that order. Our services and technology offer industry-leading operational reliability, including greater efficiency, extended time on wing, and faster turnaround times. We serve the industry's largest fleet of 70,000 engines with unrivaled customer service and flight support. This keeps us close to our customers through decades, long life cycles, building meaningful relationships, and making us the partner of choice.

Our talented engineering teams continue to develop breakthrough innovation to support our existing fleet and advance next-generation technologies. Flight Deck supports us in delivering results and lasting value for our customers and shareholders. These differentiators, combined with our growing backlog, will not only help us manage the near term, but enable us to deliver long-term value. With that, Blaire, let's go to questions.

Blaire Shoor (Head of Investor Relations)

Before we open the line, I'd ask everyone in the queue to consider your fellow analysts and ask one question so we can get to as many people as possible. Liz, can you please open the line?

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. If you wish to withdraw your question or your question has already been answered, please press star 11 again. Our first question comes from Doug Harned with Bernstein.

Douglas Harned (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Doug.

Douglas Harned (Managing Director)

You talked about tariffs at the outset, and tariffs in aviation really are not good for anybody. You said that you are advocating a return to that zero tariff approach. I wonder if you can comment some on the interactions that you have had or perhaps others in the industry have had with the administration in order to advocate for that point of view for aviation. Perhaps you can say, are there any thoughts you have about how this might play out over time, scenarios that may be possible given the uncertainty right now?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Doug, I think it's easier to speak to the first part of that than the second part. We have spoken to a number of people, senior people within the administration, including the president. We have been, I think, full-throated in our support of the administration's efforts to support American competitiveness and revitalize American manufacturing. We're well aligned in that regard. It's easy to overlook the $75 billion trade surplus the sector enjoys, largely on the back of this tariff-free regime that we've had since 1979. All we have suggested as the administration works through a myriad of issues is that they consider the position of strength that the country enjoys as a result of this tariff-free regime and to consider reestablishing the same. There are a whole host of potential scenarios here, Doug, that we could take on operationally.

I won't take your time to go through them. There is uncertainty. None of us, I think, know for sure how this plays out. As Rahul walked through a moment ago, I think what we've basically assumed here is that what we're dealing with is what we'll see through the rest of the year. We've knocked down a good bit of the gross effects through the actions like duty drawbacks and foreign trade zones, but we're still staring at the better part of $500,000,000 of headwind in 2025. In turn, that's where the cost control actions and the price actions that we've touched on here give us additional offset opportunities. As we work those operationally, rest assured we will continue to advocate in the best ways possible on behalf of the industry.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Managing Director)

Good morning, Larry and Rahul, and thank you. Maybe just sticking on the tariffs topic, if that's okay, very good start to both CES and DPT. Total profit beat of $250 million, even baking in $100 million of impact from tariffs in Q1, and you talked about a $500 million net impact. How do we think about the margin cadence in Q2 and the second half as we think about those tariffs coming in?

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Right. No, Sheila. Let me start, and Larry can jump in here. Listen, we've had a good start here. First quarter came in better than what we expected. As we think about the year, and we mentioned this in January, we did expect a strong start to the year. We were aiming for a more linear year than we had last year. Given the OE ramp was a little bit back and loaded, we have 9X shipments in the back half of the year, and then lower spare engine ratio, including step-up in corporate expenses. We had expected that we'd have a stronger first half, and we've seen that in the first quarter. As we think about the second quarter, to get to your question, we do expect that momentum to continue into the second quarter.

What we are thinking for second quarter right now, given where we are in April, is that the GE Aerospace revenue growth to be better than what we delivered in first quarter, and the profit dollars for the second quarter to be flat to sequentially up from first quarter, and decently up on a year-over-year basis. This will be primarily driven by services, and we expect similar revenue growth in services as we did in the first quarter. As I said on the call, more than 90% of the spare parts are in the backlog, which is a similar position that we were in in January for first quarter. This spare parts growth in the second quarter will be partially offset by higher OE growth.

Now, as we think about the second half of the year, a lot more uncertainty given the volatility around the macro trends that we've spoken to. We've embedded a certain amount of conservatism in our guide around departures that we spoke about and issues arising from the tariffs in China. Given that, we've reduced our expectations for spare engines and spare parts deliveries to China. Some of them will get diverted to other customers, but it'll probably still be an impact. We've also factored in the potential slowdown in departures in North America. Overall, we are holding the low double-digit spare parts growth for the year, just given the start that we've had. If you put all that together, we should still see year-over-year profit growth in the second half should still be a very, very good year for us.

Overall, as we sit here today, Sheila, we feel better about the year, even with the tariffs, even with the macroeconomic uncertainty, than we did back in January. Knowing that where we are in the world right now, we'll be back together in June at the Paris Air Show, and we'll give you an update there.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from David Strauss with Barclays.

David Strauss (Managing Director)

Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Morning.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, David.

David Strauss (Managing Director)

Just wanted to dig in a little bit on that second half of the year assumption on departures. It looks like you're assuming basically no departure growth in the second half of the year. Is that right? What is specifically in a flat departure scenario are you assuming for spares? A follow-up there on shop visits. I know you talk about you've got a lot of backlog on shop visits, but how long would you think that departures can stay relatively flat before you start to see an impact in terms of shop visits just from retirements picking up and so on? Thanks.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

David, you touched on a number of the variables there. Again, the mid-single-digit outlook for departures that we saw, we talked about back in January, held up quite well in the first.

It looks like, just looking at this morning's data, that continues to be the case. We often, I think, maybe over-index on the dynamics in the U.S. market. We know there is some cross-border traffic softening Canada to the U.S., even Europe to the U.S. Broadly, when you look around the world, departures are holding up pretty well. Rahul, I used the word conservatism earlier. I think we are just taking a conservative view with respect to the second half. U.S. departures could soften. We may see some adjustments elsewhere. We will leave the detailed planning to the airlines. Again, I think we know that it will take some time for that to impact us. Not that we will be immune for the calendar year, but when you look at past downturns, it has taken two, three, four quarters, sometimes longer, for that departure slowdown to really impact our activities.

I think that's why we've highlighted the strength of the spare parts order book that we have in hand. Again, 90% of the second quarter already in place. With the engines that are off-wing, either in our shops today waiting to come into shop or waiting to be delivered to us, that would take us well into the fall. We don't like the fact that we've got such delinquencies in place. We want to serve our customers better, but it does, I think, support the underlying strength of the backlog and the delinquency as we look at our opportunities to execute and deliver through the rest of this calendar year. Again, there's uncertainty here. We're taking what we think is a cautious view, and we'll be watching it very, very closely.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Gautam Khanna with TD Cowen.

Gautam Khanna (Analyst)

Yeah. Good morning, guys.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Gautam.

Gautam Khanna (Analyst)

Good morning. I was wondering if you could elaborate on your pricing strategy and how it might differ from normal years. Are you going to wait till kind of mid-year to enact spare price increases? What's different as you approach pricing offset the tariffs this year?

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Gautam, we are doing the two pieces to this. We will do our typical kind of catalog price increases that we do late in the summer. Again, our thinking around that has not changed. We are still aiming for that mid to high single-digit price increases on our spare parts kind of later that summer, which is consistent with where we were in January. That expectation has not changed. That typically translates into kind of mid-single-digit at the overall services level for us after sharing with the revenue share partners and everything else. The pricing benefit on the remaining service contracts is lower than what we see on the spare parts, as you know. Overall, I think that expectation has not changed. What we alluded to on the tariffs was a temporary surcharge for recovering the cost that we are feeling right now.

Now, we're trying to offset that with all the things that we spoke about, that Larry spoke about even a minute ago to Doug's question. We're trying to manage through that. We're going to take some STNA cost control actions, and whatever's left, we'll share that in some way, shape, or form to a tariff surcharge. Hopefully, it's not a permanent thing, and we can take those away as soon as the tariffs end. That's our thinking right now.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets.

Ken Herbert (Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

Yeah. Hi. Good morning, everybody.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Ken.

Ken Herbert (Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

Hey, Larry or Rahul. I just wanted to see, in the first quarter, really strong spare parts purchasing. Can you comment if you expected or saw any pre-buys there, specifically in China or elsewhere, perhaps, maybe ahead of the tariffs or other factors? As part of that over 20% growth, can you give any granularity on maybe wide-body versus narrow-body dynamics or specifically LEAP versus CFM56?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Ken, no pre-buys. I mean, typically, we do not see that in January. I think we kind of knew that. I think as we go back to the first quarter earnings call, we said 90% was in the backlog. We are sitting in a similar situation here in the second quarter, as we said a couple of times here. No pre-buys. I think the departures were up 4%. They are hanging in there. We are up 4% in the first quarter. They are hanging in at that level even in the second quarter through April and through the forward schedules that we are seeing in May. Clearly, that trend is continuing. No pre-buys. Now, in terms of the wide-body, narrow-body end on Leap versus CFM56, obviously, Leap is growing faster, right? We expected more than 30% shop visit growth on Leap.

Within that 30% shop visit growth, the external channel, we expect the external channel this year to be about 15% of our total shop visit revenue versus kind of 10% last year. Within that, you can see the external channel beginning to pick up, and that is driving the LEAP spare parts revenue growth. For CFM56, we continue to expect kind of mid-single-digit shop visit growth, which will drive the CFM56 revenue. LEAP is clearly going faster here than CFM56 on a percentage basis. Narrow-body, wide-body, I think that obviously LEAP is driving a little bit higher percentage growth, but we're seeing good growth even on the wide-body side, especially as GE9X and GEnx get into heavier work scopes.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research.

Myles Walton (Managing Director)

Thanks. Good morning. Rahul, maybe for you, the equipment gross margins in the quarter, it's another quarter of positive gross margins, I think 12%, even better than the 8% you had last quarter despite a lower spare engine ratio. I'm just curious, is there anything structural going on with respect to the razor razor blade model and making money maybe on new equipment, or is there something else under the surface you could give some color to?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Miles, a couple of things there. One, the number that you have is obviously at the total GE Aerospace level versus CES. Just keep that at the back of your mind. As you saw, defense, we did see higher revenue growth. I mean, the units were up 5% in defense. That helps. The defense business does contribute to that margin profile because those units are profitable. Now, within CES, our OE volume was a little bit lower. As you saw, the spare engine ratio did come down sequentially, but was still elevated. That will keep coming down as the year progresses, but in line with what we had projected at the beginning of the year. Nothing abnormal there. Really no change, broadly speaking, to the razor razor blade model.

Now, wide bodies are obviously those platforms are now profitable for the OE business. That is helping here as well.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs.

Noah Poponak (Managing Director)

Hey. Good morning, everyone.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Noah. Good morning.

Noah Poponak (Managing Director)

Few questions on cash flow and its deployment. To what extent was the quarter ahead of the free cash plan? If it was, how much of that is pure outperformance versus quarterly timing? I wanted to ask on the duty drawback, how long does it take to recover, and what does that mean for cash flow? In terms of its deployment, how does the current environment change your thinking in terms of being more aggressive or more conservative on capital deployment?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Maybe we could take those in reverse order, Noah. I think, as Rahul said in our prepared remarks, we continue to think that in 2025, we'll have more than $8 billion of total returns between the dividend and the buyback at $7 billion. As you would appreciate, given the comments this morning and the conviction we have about the outlook, we'll be thoughtful. We'll be opportunistic. We do have, I think it's close to $3 billion of remaining authorization in the buyback once that $7 billion that we planned for this year has been utilized. We've got some latitude, some flexibility in that regard. With respect to the duty drawback, normal course, we would see that cycle somewhere, call it four, five months. We'll see how things play out in this environment, but that'd be a good planning assumption.

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Noah, on the first quarter cash, we basically came in in line. I think we expected kind of at the levels we are at, working cap was a positive in the quarter. You saw the inventory bill that we had. It was down a little bit year over year just given the timing of cash tax payments and some of the employee liabilities that we had. Again, nothing unusual or unexpected. As we sit here for the second quarter, we do expect to have a strong second quarter on cash. It should be sequentially up from first quarter, and we expect more than 100% conversion for the second quarter.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Scott Deuschle with Deutsche Bank.

Scott Deuschle (Director and A&D Equity Research)

Hey. Good morning.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Scott.

Scott Deuschle (Director and A&D Equity Research)

Rahul, in your last investor day deck, you had this chart that showed price increases on both LEAP OE and LTSA contracts. I think it compared pricing from prior to 2018 to pricing in 2022 and 2023. The step-up was something to the tune of 100%, I think. I guess, can you characterize how much of that 100% increase in price you've seen at this point in the income statement versus how much is still just sitting in the backlog and remaining to be seen? Thank you.

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Yeah. No, Scott, you're right. Let me take that in two pieces. One, I think you're right. The shop visit prices are going up, and that's just basically the end of launch period pricing, right? I mean, obviously, as we were in the 2019 to 2021 timeframe, it was a very different time period. We were in that initial stages of launch. As we've come out of that, the Leap shop visit pricing has gone up since then. As we think about that price increase that we put in place, that takes a few years for it to show up in a PRL, as you mentioned, just given the timing of contract. Obviously, with the delays in aircraft deliveries, that cycle is a little bit elongated.

While we are implementing price increases for the shop visits and the portfolio accretion is at the higher price, that has not really showed up in our P&L just yet. That will take another couple of years before it starts showing up. Those contracts that we have signed recently, they go into effect.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Seth Seifman with JPMorgan.

Seth Seifman (Analyst)

Hey. Thanks very much. Good morning.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Seth.

Seth Seifman (Analyst)

Good morning. One follow-up question on the drawbacks, I guess. How do you think about those working through the supply chain? Do you have any—do suppliers take care of all of that themselves? Does any of it go through you? Do you anticipate, given that some of them might not be as well capitalized, some need to support them? Perhaps on the flip side, given the amount of inventory that you have, that there is maybe an opportunity to draw a little bit less right now? Basically, how you're thinking about managing the supply chain in light of the tariffs?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Seth, I would say big picture, there's a tremendous amount of work going on with the new tech and ops organization to strengthen our overall working relationship with the supply base, large and small. I appreciate your comment about our current inventory levels. I don't think we're looking to make an adjustment here, given some of the uncertainty, because we know with the backlog that we are challenged to deliver both OE and aftermarket for the rest of this decade. We're going to need that inventory, and we want to strengthen the supply base. We are going to be looking to find ways in which we can do that amid this uncertainty. Clearly, for the suppliers with whom we've got firm fixed contracts, that additional burden will be borne by them. We'll work through, where appropriate, right, adjustments in our overall arrangements with them.

Clearly, we've got some bigger suppliers. We've got our partnership with Safran as well, where it's a different dynamic. There are a lot of moving pieces here, and that's probably why we wanted to take the step that we did this morning to include a good bit of that as best we know it today into the forward guide, right? Again, to Doug's earlier question, we'll be advocating for a position which we believe to be very much aligned with the president's America First trade agenda. To the extent that things don't change, to the extent that the reciprocal tariffs kick in in the back half, we want to make sure we're ready hand in hand with our suppliers, large and small, in addition to taking the cost and price actions that we referenced. It's a fluid situation.

I think that's part of what I suspect we'll be talking about through the course of the spring and summer here, not the least of which is at Paris as we work our way through this along with everybody else.

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Seth, just to add maybe two points to what Larry said. One, we've learned a lot here, right, over the last month or so since we started working the offsetting actions and understanding what programs are there that we can utilize to offset the gross impact. We are sharing that with our supply base and helping them understand what we know today, right? I'm sure we'll learn from them as well as we compare notes. That's one. The second, to your point about the duty drawbacks, I think they can claim the duty drawbacks for everything that we export. Obviously, we will provide them the documentation and the support they need to avail of that program.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jason Gursky with Citi.

Jason Gursky (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey. Good morning, everybody.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Morning, Jason.

Jason Gursky (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. I just wanted to ask a bigger picture question on the defense side of things. We've seen kind of a flurry of executive orders come out of the White House. Most recently, we got one related to the potential to rewrite federal acquisition regulation. I just wanted to get a sense from you all on what impact that might have on the industrial base. The administration seems to be pitching this as "kind of cutting red tape and speeding up the acquisition process." I'm wondering if that's always a good thing, or are there going to be some unintended consequences that we should be on the lookout for as we look at this kind of rewrite of FAR?

Yeah.

Rahul Ghai (CFO)

Jason, I don't know if we know exactly what's on your mind, but the couple that I'm aware of or we are aware of here, and we could take it offline if that doesn't get to your question, which is, I think there are two pieces. One is the FMS reform to support and deliver more efficiently and effectively our export to our allies. We at GE Aerospace are fortunate to be in a position where we have several highly capable programs that have a lot of international demand, whether it's Black Hawks, Apaches, F-16s, and soon to be exported the F-15EX. All these improvements allow us to get our products in the hands of our allies, and that's a really welcome improvement. We appreciate everything that's done, and that'll help support our growth, but also that of the broader industry.

The other improvements in requirements and acquisition processes to define the requirements, so that elimination of any bureaucratic issues there also supports us. There are a few other things that are about loss programs and all that. Now, again, we do not have a ton of that in our portfolio, so that does not directly impact us. Again, I think holding the industry accountable for its performance is not a bad thing.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Ron Epstein with Bank of America.

Ron Epstein (Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey. Good morning, guys. Maybe a little different angle on the tariff question. How are you all thinking about rare earths and some of the rare metals that you need either directly in what you do or what your suppliers need, given some of the changing rules in China? I mean, do you have it inventoried, or do you have alternative ways to source it? How are you thinking about that?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

You would imagine we've been thinking about that a lot. I'm sure everybody else in the space has. Between alternate sources and inventory positions, both our own and with our supplier partners, we don't currently see any real issues here. There are some things that we'll continue to work through. We'll see how this is resolved from a trade negotiation perspective. That's not high on our worry list at the moment.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Scott Mikus with Melius Research.

Scott Mikus (Equity Research Associate)

Morning.

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Morning, Scott.

Scott Mikus (Equity Research Associate)

Hey, Larry. I just wanted to ask a quick question on the pricing dynamic. Pricing in the aftermarket has been very healthy the past several years, but now airlines are seeing softening demand for travel, although departures at least seem to be holding up for now. I am just wondering, how are you thinking about balancing the price increases to offset tariffs and inflation while avoiding demand destruction so engines are not seeing premature retirements?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Got it. There's clearly a balancing act here. I think what we've always tried to do is really adhere to a handful of principles with respect to making sure we share in the value that we create, are compensated for the risks that we take on, and obviously deliver adequate returns on the investments, the long-term, long-cycle investments that we make. I think Rahul talked about how we're going about some of the longer-term actions, both around some of the new programs like LEAP, how we're approaching the CLP, the spare parts pricing later this year, and the surcharges, the hopefully temporary surcharges vis-à-vis the tariffs. All of that's in play. Again, we need to balance that out in the right way, given the competing priorities here.

I think we're optimistic that we can do that smartly, fairly, constructively with our customers around the world and do so in a way that doesn't, as you say, disrupt demand.

Blaire Shoor (Head of Investor Relations)

Liz, I think we will wrap it up there. Larry, any final comments?

Larry Culp (Chairman and CEO)

Larry, thank you. Just to close, our customers and the flying public are counting on us. We know that, and we're confident in our ability to deliver. The GE Aerospace team is up to that challenge. We continue to increase our deliveries of services and products, keeping safety and quality top of mind while developing the technologies for the future. We appreciate your time today and your interest in GE Aerospace.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.