Good morning, and welcome to GE Aerospace's 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting. We do not expect any technical difficulties today. However, in the event we lose audio or webcast connection, please wait in the meeting site until we are able to resolve or provide an update. Please refer to the GE Aerospace Investor Relations website at www.geaerospace.com/investor-relations/annual-meeting for updates. The polls are open. To vote, click on the Vote Here button at the bottom right corner of the webcast screen. If you have not yet voted your shares, you may do so now and do not need to wait until the balloting portion of the meeting. The polls will remain open until the conclusion of the balloting portion of the meeting. With that, I will turn it over to GE Aerospace to begin the meeting.
I was raised by careful hands. Yeah, they made me who I am. I'll be strong enough, I know, when I head out on my own. I'm off to see the world, want to see what makes this world. No matter how far I roll, you know I'm always coming home.
We invent them, we design them, we build them. One day, we have to let them soar.
Yeah, I'm always coming home.
Good morning, and thank you to all our shareholders and guests for joining us today. I am Jake Phillips, GE Aerospace's Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. Before we begin, I'd like to note that during the meeting today, we may make forward-looking statements about our expectations or predictions about the future. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that involve risks and uncertainties, GE Aerospace's actual performance and results may differ materially from what is said here today. Please refer to our 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K, our first quarter Form 10-Q, and other filings the company makes with the SEC for detailed discussion of the principal risks and uncertainties that could cause such differences. The agenda for today's meeting is shown on the screen and is also available for download from the meeting website.
The Rules of Conduct, our proxy statement, and our Annual Report are also available for download from the bottom of the screen for the webcast. Our Rules of Conduct are designed to ensure that we have a fair and orderly meeting. We'll start this morning with an update on company operations from our Chairman and CEO, Larry Culp. Following Larry's presentation, we will move into the formal part of the meeting, including voting on the management and shareholder proposals that are set forth in the proxy statement. Polls are currently open for voting and will remain open until the conclusion of balloting. If you already submitted a vote, there's no need to enter it again. Next, we will conclude the balloting and hear from the Inspectors of Elections with the preliminary vote tallies.
Following the formal portion of the meeting, we'll take some shareholder questions in accordance with the meeting Rules of Conduct. Questions can be submitted now in writing in the lower left-hand corner of the webcast screen. I'd like to welcome Larry to get us started with an update on the company. Larry?
Jake, thank you. I'd also like to welcome everyone to GE Aerospace's 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting. A little over one year ago, we made history with the launch of GE Aerospace as a standalone company. Over the past year, nothing has been more front and center than our purpose: inventing the future of flight, lifting people up, and bringing them home safely. Those last four words remain our top priority, with nearly a million passengers in flight at this moment, with technology made by GE Aerospace and our JV partners under wing. Flight is an incredible responsibility, and everyone at GE Aerospace owns safety at all levels of the organization, from the shop floor to engineering and sourcing to the leadership team. Our work matters to the world, and we care deeply about how we do it.
Using FLIGHT DECK, our proprietary lean operating model, we're focused on driving continuous improvement. It's all about SQDC: safety, quality, delivery, and cost, always in that order with safety first. I'm deeply proud of what our 53,000 employees have accomplished together with our customers and industry partners, and I'm sure we're only getting started. GE Aerospace is an exceptional franchise recognized as the global leader in propulsion, services, and systems, with $35 billion in adjusted revenue in 2024, approximately 70% of which is driven by our aftermarket services. In 2024, we delivered a standout year financially, with significant growth across all key metrics, including revenue up double digits, profit up $1.7 billion, and free cash flow up $1.3 billion. The strength of our financial performance was driven by our operational and commercial successes.
In 2024, we launched FLIGHT DECK to better serve our customers, and it's been energizing to work alongside our teams from Ohio to Lynn, Massachusetts, to Wales, to Singapore, and everywhere else where we're activating FLIGHT DECK. More on that in a moment. Throughout the year, we secured orders for more than 4,600 engines. To name just a few, in the narrow-body space, this included American Airlines' commitment for 85 new Boeing 737 MAX jets powered by our LEAP-1Bs. In wide-bodies, we were honored to add new GEnx customers, British Airways and Thai Airways. In defense, we received an order from the Polish Armed Forces for 210 T700 engines to power the 96 Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters.
Our LEAP engine program continues to be a significant growth driver, with the fleet expected to double by 2030. To support this, we expanded LEAP aftermarket capacity by 40% in 2024, with more to come. We also received certification of the LEAP-1A HPT durability kit. Combined with the three prior durability enhancements that are performing well in the field, these changes will increase LEAP's time on wing by more than twofold against current levels and achieve parity with the CFM56's performance today. Given the strength of our performance and our balance sheet, we're driving compounding shareholder returns. In 2024, we returned more than $6 billion to shareholders through over $5 billion of share repurchases and $1 billion in dividends. Taken together, these actions delivered a 65% total shareholder return in 2024, outpacing the 17% return from the S&P 500 Industrials Index. How do we continue this momentum?
We're keeping our strategy simple, focusing on today, tomorrow, and the future. Today, we're focused on service and readiness, keeping our customers' fleets flying. For tomorrow, we're delivering on the ramp and executing our $170 billion+ backlog. For the future, we're advancing the technology that will define the future of flight across both commercial and defense, with approximately $3 billion in annual R&D spending, all made possible through FLIGHT DECK to ensure focused execution as a standalone public company. Fundamentally, it's a systemic approach to running our businesses to deliver additional value as measured through the eyes of our customers. Take, for example, our on-wing support team, which leveraged FLIGHT DECK. This contributed to the LEAP internal shop visit growth of more than 20% in the fourth quarter of last year alone.
The same meaningful progress can also be seen in how we tackle supply chain constraints to deliver on our new engine backlog. At the start of 2024, 80% of material shortages were tied to 15 priority supplier sites. Using FLIGHT DECK, we deployed more than 550 of our engineering and supply chain resources into the supply base, and together, we worked to identify labor shortfalls and manufacturing yield issues, alternate material types for raw material shortages, and other opportunities to improve flow and lead time. As a result, we increased material input by 26% across these priority sites from the first half of the year to the second half. Importantly, we're sustaining these improvements through 2025 so far. To build on this progress, we brought together our engineering and supply chain teams into one organization, which we call Technology and Operations, led by Mohamed Ali.
The team has already hit the ground running and with shared accountability across the full value chain. I'm confident we'll enable faster problem-solving to accelerate deliveries in the year ahead. This is the power of FLIGHT DECK. More to do, of course, but it's helping us further define the culture and deliver results across our company. FLIGHT DECK continues to be instrumental in how we manage through today's macroeconomic dynamics. Based on what we know today, we're on track to deliver another strong year in 2025, given the robust start to the year, along with the visibility provided by our commercial services backlog, which today stands at over $140 billion. To close on slide seven, GE Aerospace is a long-cycle business, and our competitive advantage will carry us through any short-term challenges. This slide captures what we believe continues to set us apart.
We have a diversified fleet of preferred platforms across narrow-body, wide-body, and defense sectors. At the core of everything we do is safety, quality, delivery, and cost, always in that order. Our services and technology offer industry-leading operational reliability, including greater efficiency, extended time on wing, and faster turnaround times. We serve the industry's largest fleet of 70,000 engines with unrivaled customer service and flight support. This keeps us close to our customers through decades-long cycles, building meaningful relationships and making us the partner of choice. Our talented engineering teams continue to develop breakthrough innovations to support our existing fleet and advance next-generation technologies. Of course, FLIGHT DECK supports us in delivering results and lasting value for our customers and our shareholders. Stepping back, 2024 was a strong first year as GE Aerospace.
My thanks go out to our entire team for their dedication, innovation, and commitment to our purpose. You are what makes us a leader in our industry. While the broader environment is certainly uncertain, we're operating from a position of strength today, and I couldn't be more excited for the opportunities ahead. With that, I'd like to start the official business for the meeting by introducing my colleagues on the GE Aerospace Board of Directors who are on the line here today. Our director nominees are Steve Angel, Sébastien Bazin, Peg Billson, Tom Enders, Ed Garden, Bella Goren, Tom Horton, Cathy Lesjak, and Darren McDew. I'll now hand it back to Jake to walk us through the formal part of the meeting and the voting matters that are set forth in the proxy. Jake, over to you.
Thank you, Larry. I am advised that this meeting is properly convened, that we have a quorum, and that the proposed resolutions presented in the proxy statement are filed as part of these proceedings. We have received proxies representing a majority of the outstanding shares eligible to vote, and the Management Proxy Committee has voted those shares in accordance with shareholder wishes. As the operator noted at the beginning of the meeting, the polls are open. If you have not already voted your shares or wish to change your vote, you may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button at the bottom right corner of the webcast screen. The polls will remain open until the conclusion of the balloting portion of the meeting today. The independent inspectors of election are representatives of First Coast Results, and the inspectors have taken the oath of office required by law.
We'll take up the election of directors in the management proposals first. Then we'll turn to the shareholder proposals. There will also be time later in the meeting for some general Q&A on other business matters, but first, we'll address the items in the proxy statement. First up is the election of directors. I place before the meeting to serve as directors for the coming year the 10 individuals who were introduced by Larry a few moments ago. The nominees' backgrounds and qualifications are described in more detail in the proxy statement. Your board of directors recommends a vote for each of the director nominees. The next item is the proposal to approve our named executives' compensation. Your board of directors recommends a vote for the approval of our named executives' compensation.
We have provided information about the company's compensation philosophy, key program elements, and 2024 compensation actions for named executives in the compensation section of the proxy statement. It begins on page 26. The final management proposal is ratification of Deloitte as independent auditor for 2025. We have with us on the line today John Rhodes, Deloitte's lead audit partner for the GE Aerospace audit, and Joe Ucuzoglu, CEO of Deloitte. Your board of directors recommends a vote for the ratification of Deloitte as independent auditor for 2025. We'll now consider the shareholder proposal listed in the agenda. I understand that Martin Herrera Gozo is on the line today to present the shareholder proposal requesting a vote on severance payments. Operator, please open up the line for Mr. Herrera Gozo.
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Martin Herrera Gozo. I'm grateful to be a shareholder. I love this company, people, and products. I've been a shareholder 35 years. Most of my life, I've been an employee more than 20 years, most of my professional career. My retirement savings and quality of life rely in part on the success of this company. Requiring shareholder input to executive compensation in any form is a practice of shareholder oversight, a component critically lacking at the General Electric company, yet most important. General Electric published in its 2014 proxy statement in black and white, and I quote word for word, "There are routine compromises in the spirit and letter commitment." August 2012, General Electric would call million appliances posing fire hazards.
Coincidentally, months earlier, a judge ordered General Electric to pay an employee, making the employee whole as if the employee was never fired from the General Electric company. The firing from the company occurred shortly after reporting that an appliance failed to fire an explosion test. General Electric used child photography in its unsuccessful four-year legal battle against the employee, raising fire and explosion appliance concerns. Case numbers listed. August 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud and other charges against General Electric company, alleging it misled investors. General Electric bent the accounting rules beyond the breaking point, said Robert Khuzami, Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Enforcement. General Electric agreed to a $50 million penalty. November 2010, a shareholder raised concerns.
Mr. Martin Herrera Gozo, I'm just going to remind you to keep your remarks to the subject of your proposal and to please adhere to the meeting rules of conduct we discussed with you in advance. Please proceed.
Fact is, in November 2010, a shareholder raised concerns regarding accounting income for 2010 on parts. One fact was parts were not yet sold, and some of the parts were not projected to be sold until the second half of 2011. Company part sourcing boss, Matthew Johnson, stated, "We do not necessarily want to do it. We need to tee it up as a possibility." Where you can recognize income versus cash depends on which is more important to the business at the time. The website is listed. False accounting resulted in 2009 fines to the Securities Change Commission. This accounting perhaps explains how in 2009, shareholders were promised that the dividend would be protected, yet for the most part, disappeared. General Electric underperformed the market 2001 to 2012. The only solution is to sell the company, end quote.
General Electric's response to Matthew Johnson apparently cooking the books was to sell the appliance business to the People's Republic of China. Number one New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer writes a book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. Some people draw a link between Matthew Johnson.
We will conclude Mr. Herrera Gozo's remarks there as they have departed from the subject of his proposal. The shareholder proposal, as described on page 59 of the proxy statement, is presented for a vote. The board recommends against this proposal for the reasons set forth on page 60 of the proxy statement. Those are the management and shareholder proposals. If you'd like to ask a question about any of the proposals, please enter it in the portal now. Please note that there will be an opportunity for more general Q&A on matters that are unrelated to these proposals after the formal portion of the meeting and the close of the voting, which will be happening soon. We'll answer questions that do not directly relate to the proposals at that time.
Let me take a moment now to check for any questions about the voting items to see if there are any aspects that are not addressed in the proxy statement already. I do not see any questions on the proposals to address here, so we will move on to balloting and the results of the voting. Turning now to balloting. For any shareholders who are online and who have not yet voted, the polls will be closing momentarily. If you already submitted a vote, again, there's no need to enter it. Any vote submitted during the meeting will be reflected in the final vote results, which we will report after the meeting. We'll give a few more moments here for any remaining votes to be entered. This concludes the review of the matters to be voted on. The polls are now closed.
I believe the inspectors of election are ready to announce the outcome of the voting. Let's go to the inspectors' report. Michael Barbera, the First Coast Results, is on the line to present the report of the inspectors. Mr. Barbera, do you have a report for us?
Mr. Chairman, the inspectors of election have completed an initial count of the votes cast at this meeting in person or by proxy. Proxies representing approximately 918 million shares, or 86% of the total shares eligible to vote, were received. Other shares have been voted at this meeting by ballot or by proxy. On the basis of our initial count, the inspectors of election announced the following results. Election of directors. All nominees have received at least 92% of the votes cast, and all nominees have been elected. The advisory approval of our named executives' compensation, or 71% of shares voted against 29%. Ratification of Deloitte as independent auditor for 2025, or greater than 99% of shares voted against less than 1%. The shareholder proposal requesting vote on severance payments, or 5% of shares voted against 95%. Mr.
Chairman, this initial tally is subject to verification, and the final tabulation may reflect small changes in the vote I have announced. The final tabulation will be set forth in the formal report of the inspector of election to the company, which will be made after the vote has been verified. This concludes our report.
Thank you, Mr. Barbera. That concludes the formal portion of the meeting. Now we have some general shareholder questions that have been submitted in accordance with the rules of conduct. I'll read the questions for Larry to answer, and we'll address a few in the time we have remaining this morning. Larry, for our first question, we received a few on the subject of tariffs. We had a good bit of discussion about this a couple of weeks ago on our earnings call, and we know this topic is top of mind for many shareholders. One shareholder, Ashley Nicole McCrary, put it this way, "What are your current and future views on the administration's tariffs as it applies to GE Aerospace growth and supplies to and from other countries?
First off, Ashley, thanks for your question. I'd start by saying we support the administration's focus on American competitiveness and revitalizing U.S. manufacturing. In fact, as some of you may know, we recently announced that GE Aerospace would invest $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing this year and hire 5,000 workers in the U.S. The aerospace sector, when we step back, has certainly benefited from a tariff-free regime since 1979, and that has supported U.S. industry leadership and global trade stability. Under this regime, U.S. aerospace has flourished, reflecting in its current $75 billion annual U.S. trade surplus as a sector, which certainly highlights its strategic value. This benefits not just GE Aerospace, of course, but also other exporters and the thousands of small and mid-sized suppliers nationwide. We're advocating for our return to that zero-for-zero duty framework to preserve this uniquely successful industrial model.
For now, we shared on our first quarter earnings report that heightened tariffs will result in additional costs for us and our supply chain, so we're taking actions to offset that impact and to help us navigate the uncertainty in the environment. We're leveraging available programs the administration is providing businesses, such as duty drawbacks, along with other strategies to optimize our operations, like expanding the use of foreign trade zones. We expect these actions to reduce the incremental costs in 2025 to roughly $500 million. We are taking additional actions to offset this remaining impact. This includes controlling costs while maintaining investments in key priorities and pricing actions.
Thanks, Larry. Our next question comes from Matthew Clements. It's a multi-part question about business performance, so let me try to summarize it a bit. He asks, "What were factors in 2024 that limited revenue growth for commercial engines and services in the company overall? Related to that, what's the vision at the executive and board level to drive revenue growth in 2025?
Overall, I think we were pleased with both total company and CES revenue, which were up double digits in 2024, while we also delivered significant profit and free cash flow growth. Fortunately, demand has not been an issue, with 2024 CES services orders up 30% and backlog growing by over $11 billion. However, supply chain and material constraints continue to be an industry-wide challenge. In 2024, we faced constraints tied mostly to our 15 priority supplier sites, and we leveraged FLIGHT DECK to tackle these supply chain constraints head-on. Early in 2024, our priority suppliers shipped only half of their committed targets. Today, they're shipping over 90% of those committed volumes.
Just to give you one additional example, at a joint kaizen with one of these suppliers late last year, we focused on eliminating waste, and in just one week, we were able to achieve a 50% increase in output. Now, at the end of the first quarter of 2025, the same team has delivered a 3X increase quarter- over- quarter. Of course, we'll need to drive further sustainable improvements to meet our demand in 2025, and this is exactly why FLIGHT DECK is so important to us. Recognizing that we're at our best when we operate as one team, we also reorganized our teams internally into a new technology and operations organization.
This combines engineering with supply chain, which allows us to tightly share near and long-term growth outlooks across services and new build with our suppliers, providing them with the transparency and stability needed to make critical investments to support our ramp while discussing key challenges. We continue to monitor the ongoing uncertainty in the macro environment as we look to the second half of this year. Our focus for 2025 is accelerating the progress we made last year, and we remain confident that we'll increase output in 2025 and longer term, leading to continued revenue growth.
We have time for one last question, Larry. It's from Jeff Parker. Jeff asks, "You shared that you are investing nearly $3 billion in research and development. What technologies is the company most excited about?
Jeff, thanks for the question. I'd like to think we're excited about everything we're putting time and talent, let alone money, into. As you heard us mention earlier, we are committed deeply to inventing the future of flight. It's in our purpose statement, and it really is top of mind for us every day. The success we experienced today, we know, was made possible by the investments in technology the GE Aerospace team made 10, 20, even 30 years ago. The team on the field today wants to ensure that we're doing the same for the next generation of GE Aerospace leaders. You're right, we're investing $3 billion this year with a focus on developing the technology building blocks that will shape next-generation aviation with a strong focus on efficiency. On the commercial side, we're working on the development program we call RISE in partnership with Safran.
RISE technologies we believe will define the future commercial aerospace travel architectures through key advancements in open fan engines and high-pressure turbine technology. On the defense side, we're continuing to invest in advanced engines, hypersonics, and uncrewed aircraft, all of which are mission-critical to maintaining U.S. air superiority, and we believe will be the cornerstone of the portfolio in 10 years. As you probably know, we cannot afford to underinvest in the future of flight, and we're confident that our investments today will further advance GE Aerospace's long and strong legacy of innovation well into the future.
Thank you, Larry. That's all we have time for today. We will address any questions that we have not spoken to on the call today by posting responses on our investor relations website as described in the meeting rules of conduct. With that, Larry, I'll turn it back to you to close this out.
Jake, thank you. Thanks for those questions, and certainly our thanks go out to everybody who was able to join us today. The board and I remain dedicated to working to protect and grow your investment in our company, and we thank you for your confidence in us. Personally, it's certainly a privilege to serve as your chairman and CEO. Thank you.
The meeting has now concluded. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.