The big news for the Aerospace & Defense section of the IW U.S. 500 is, of course, the Boeing strike (as chronicled in our main IW U.S. 500 story). The strike lasted six weeks, prevented delivery of 180 aircraft, slapped revenues with a price tag for the strike around $11 billion and helped net income for the year drop by 632%.
Not a good year for Boeing.
Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, on the other hand, all benefited from new funds approved by Congress that included replenishing U.S. arms in Ukraine. Global military spend increased across the globe, owing to ongoing conflicts and arguably by the saber-rattling in Eastern Europe as NATO seeks to stiffen its defenses.
And to talk briefly about this year's winner, RTX, its Raytheon business saw growth in sales of the Global Patriot and NASAMS anti-air systems so highly in demand by Ukraine and NATO, in addition to demand for counter-UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) programs driven by the new, drone-centric warfare between Ukraine and Russia.
