“We're holding our free cash flow expectation in the range of $6 billion to $6.3 billion, which absorbs a potential unfavorable impact from longer deferrals of final F-35 delivery payments.”

In context

“inued cost pressure and absorption headwinds, the impact of which have exceeded benefits from its cost reduction programs. Conversely, space is benefiting from solid performance and proactive reduction efforts. Moving to earnings per share on Chart 11. We're increasing the midpoint by $0.35 to $26.35 with a range of $26.10 to $26.60 for the full year. Primary drivers of the change are shown on this chart with increases coming from incremental profit of $0.49 and other below-the-line items of $0.13. Partially offsetting those items are the RMS charges totaling $0.29 and from the severance actions and the asset write-downs taken in the second quarter. As Jim mentioned, we're encouraged by the F-35 delivery restart and continuous progress being made towards delivering full combat capability. We're holding our free cash flow expectation in the range of $6 billion to $6.3 billion, which absorbs a potential unfavorable impact from longer deferrals of final F-35 delivery payments. This is made possible by proactive actions taken across the company to offset these potential headwinds. On the cash deployment side, we still expect over $3 billion of IR&D and capital investments, while the dividend, along with the expected $4 billion of share repurchases, maintain attractive shareholder returns. Lastly, on backlog, we continue to expect backlog to grow in 2024 even with the higher sales outlook, which provides a line of sight to future growth. Before I wrap, I'd like to highlight a few other key assumptions regarding the updated outlook. First, we expect F-35 18/19 to be awarded this year, maintaining program funding and continuity. Second, we continue to expect $325 million of losses on the MFC classified program, of which $100 million has been recognized year-to-date”