Deliveries and revenues up at Gulfstream in the first quarter of 2013

Gulfstream deliveries increased in the first quarter of 2013, after the company delivered 30 ‘green’ business jets – up from 28 in the first quarter of 2012 – and 29 outfitted business jets – up from 19.

Revenues at Gulfstream’s aerospace revenue, which includes Jet Aviation, was up $155 million – almost 10% against the year-ago quarter – and profit also increased by $39 million.

Although much of this was from Gulfstream – particularly due to G650 deliveries – Jet Aviation was also profitable in the first quarter having broken even in the same three months of 2012.

“Jet is a smaller business than when we acquired it, primarily because we failed to integrate Jet in a timely fashion,” said Phebe Novakovic, chairman and CEO of General Dynamics on an April 24 earnings call.

“We have now solved all of the underlying performance issues, particularly on the completion side. There’s always a fair amount of volatility, particularly in Europe, with respect to maintenance, and you saw that we restructured that maintenance business to reflect the demand. And so far, the demand for service is holding up fairly well, given our expectations.”

“Going forward, the issue for us is completion both of the corporate jets and then the large-body and narrow-body major completion projects that we’re perfectly capable of executing,” added Novakovic. “And now that we’ve got the Gulfstream discipline embedded and inculcated throughout Jet, we’re likely to perform very well on. So I’m optimistic about Jet.”

She said that demand at Gulfstream remained strong with defaults falling. About 80% of all orders in the first quarter were for large cabin aircraft.