Reporting today on its year-end results, Raytheon said that Raytheon Aircraft delivered 255 turbine business airplanes last year (141 jets and 114 King Airs) compared with 219 (115 jets and 104 King Airs) in 2004. This was an increase of 16.4 percent year over year, just short of Raytheon’s revised forecast of 267 turbine business airplanes. Ironically, the company’s forecast before the revision (made in the third quarter of last year) was for 256 turbine business airplane shipments in 2005. The company did not provide a revised outlook for this year, but Raytheon Aircraft chairman and CEO Jim Schuster said, “We are about half sold out [for 2006] on higher volume and we are delivering 50 percent more airplanes than we did in 2003.†The 50 Raytheon 4000s that NetJets ordered in the third quarter are slated to be delivered between 2007 and 2015.
