“It would, however, be a stretch to get to 1 to 1 in the fourth quarter, given our expectation of over 60 deliveries.”

In context

“ore than in the second quarter. To provide some additional color here, Gulfstream has made 72 aircraft deliveries through the end of the quarter. We are on track to deliver between 40 and 45 currently in-service aircraft in the fourth quarter. All-in including G700s, we anticipate in excess of 60 deliveries in the quarter, assuming we’re granted FAA certification before the end of the year. That said, as you can tell, there’s a considerable amount of uncertainty as we get closer to certification. Moving to the demand environment, this was yet another positive quarter reflecting continuing strong demand. Aerospace book-to-bill was 1.4 to 1, and Gulfstream alone had a book-to-bill of 1.5 to 1. We continue to have vibrant sales activity going into the fourth quarter and expect strong orders. It would, however, be a stretch to get to 1 to 1 in the fourth quarter, given our expectation of over 60 deliveries. A wildcard in the quarter will be the conflict in Israel and its impact on demand, if any. The period of significant increased aircraft demand began in mid-February of 2021, over two and a half years ago. In 2021, Gulfstream’s book-to-bill was 1.7 to 1, in ’22 it was 1.5 to 1, and year-to-date 2023 it’s 1.3 to 1. This includes the first quarter of 2023, when there was a three-week hiatus in orders as a result of the failure of several regional banks. In that quarter, we still managed a 0.9 to 1 book-to-bill. All of this leads quite naturally to an astonishing build of the aerospace backlog. It grew from $11.6 billion at the end of 2020 to $20.1 billion at the end of the third quarter 2023, an increase of over 70% in two and three-quarter years. This all speaks to me of the underlying str”