RTX used its annual meeting to project confidence in the demand outlook for both commercial aerospace and defence, with chief executive Chris Calio telling shareowners that the company’s backlog had reached a record $271 billion, up 25% on the year. The meeting, held virtually on 30 April, also served as a showcase for RTX’s push to expand output, deepen investment and present itself as a company still benefiting from strong airline traffic and heightened global security needs. The company said those trends are feeding orders for new aircraft products, aftermarket services and advanced military systems.

Calio said RTX plans to spend more than $10.5 billion in 2026 on capital expenditure and company- and customer-funded research and development, after investing more than $10 billion last year. He pointed to targeted capacity additions in Columbus, Georgia, and Huntsville, Alabama, along with further work at Collins Aerospace to support radar systems and air traffic modernisation. According to RTX, the company is also pursuing 10 cross-company technology roadmaps spanning areas including propulsion, microelectronics and integrated battlespace capabilities.

Operationally, the chief executive highlighted what he described as broad-based gains across the group. Pratt & Whitney lifted maintenance, repair and overhaul output on the PW1100 GTF engine by 26% last year, while first-quarter output was up 23% year on year, helping reduce aircraft-on-ground pressure. Raytheon increased production across several critical programmes by 20%, including GEM-T for Patriot, AMRAAM and Coyote, and Calio said total munitions output in the first quarter rose by more than 40% from a year earlier.

The company is also leaning on its internal productivity programme, with Calio saying RTX ran almost 12,000 CORE events last year and has linked factories representing more than half of annual manufacturing hours to its data and analytics platform. He said the aim is to connect 60% of manufacturing hours by year-end. One example cited by the company was Andover, Massachusetts, where circuit card production cycle times were cut by about 35% in 2025.

Shareowners approved all 10 director nominees, an advisory resolution on executive pay and the reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditor. According to the company, the pay proposal passed with 96.24% support and the auditor vote with 95.17%. Calio was joined by senior executives including chief financial officer Neil G. Mitchill Jr and chief human resources officer Dantaya Williams, who outlined compensation, development and retention programmes for more than 105,000 employees, while general counsel Raja Maharajh discussed human rights due diligence and board oversight of ethics and compliance.

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Source: Noah Wire Services