H. Lawrence Culp
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at General Electric
Blaire, thank you, and good morning. We're pleased to be joining you from GE Aerospace's headquarters in Evendale, Ohio. For more than a century, GE Aerospace employees have been inventing the future of flight, lifting people up and bringing them home safely. Those last four words, bringing them home safely, are an incredible responsibility and will always be our top priority and core to our culture. We're motivated each day by our purpose and guided by FLIGHT DECK, our proprietary lean operating model. Our team is dedicated to safety, quality, delivery, and cost in that order. That focus will enable us to meet the significant demand of today while building the innovative solutions of tomorrow. It is because of the shared commitment of our 52,000 employees around the world that we have the privilege to continue to advance flight for today, tomorrow, and the future.
Turning to our third quarter performance. Orders were up 28%, driven by robust demand, and we delivered strong earnings and cash. Revenue was up 6% from growth in services and equipment while operating profit was up 14% and adjusted EPS up 25%. Free cash flow was $1.8 billion, with conversion of more than 140%. In Commercial Engines & Services or CES, orders were up 29%, with more than 20% growth in both services and equipment. Our recent wins in widebodies and narrowbodies build on our considerable backlog of $149 billion, greater than 90% of which is in services. Services revenue grew 10% and supported total operating profit, which was up 16% year-over-year. Our priority continues to be servicing and growing the industry's most extensive commercial installed base. We made progress with the step-up in OE deliveries quarter-over-quarter, with higher spare part sales to support our external MRO network while also expanding aftermarket capacity. Progress to be sure, but more work lies ahead.
In Defense & Propulsion Technologies or DPT, orders increased 19% while profit declined. Engine deliveries were up sequentially, but down year-over-year. We're focused on improving delivery of our leading defense programs while developing mission-critical technology for the future. Many thanks to our team for their work and dedication this quarter, and a specific thank you this morning goes out to our teams impacted by Hurricanes, Helene and Milton. You worked around the clock to support each other and minimized the impact to our customers. You are GE Aerospace at its finest. Given the strength of our results, growing both profit and cash more than $1 billion year-to-date, combined with our fourth quarter expectations, we're raising our full year guidance. We also continue to coordinate closely with Boeing and are committed to supporting them as they navigate their current dynamics.
Moving to Slide 5. Demand for our services and products remains robust, highlighted by departures up high-single digits year-to-date and LEAP share of global narrowbody departures increasing over 20%. We're taking steps with our suppliers to increase inputs and within our own operations to expand capacity, ensuring we're positioned to meet this historic demand. We're making progress with engine output increasing 22% quarter-over-quarter, including commercial up 25% and defense up 8%. We also grew spare parts sales sequentially, supporting shop visits completed by our third-party network. As we've discussed over the last nine months, we're using FLIGHT DECK to unlock key constraints, increase material inputs and drive sustainable improvements. We're working hand-in-hand with suppliers, and we're grateful for their strengthening partnerships.
As a result of that work, a key subset of priority supplier sites increased output 18% in the third quarter, supporting our deliveries. As one example, a joint Kaizen with one supplier in the second quarter led to a double-digit improvement in material receipts in the third quarter, demonstrating that these efforts are yielding results. We expect inputs to increase again in the fourth quarter, supporting a sequential step-up in output. We're also making progress on LEAP durability with the 1A durability kit, including our upgraded HPT blade, and we're expecting it to be certified in the coming weeks.
The new HPT blade is easier to manufacture, which will also help increase output. Combined with the three durability enhancements that are currently performing well in the field, we expect this will give LEAP a two and a half times improvement in time-on-wing, in line with current CFM56 levels. With LEAP's fleet size projected to double by 2030, we're expanding capacity to support aftermarket growth. We're preparing for this growth in three complementary ways to improve shop visit output and reduce turnaround times. First, we're leveraging FLIGHT DECK to eliminate waste, to increase capacity and reduce TAT. At our MRO facility in Celma, Brazil, we use value stream mapping and problem solving to reduce LEAP test cycle time, a key constraint in shop visit output. We identified waste and improved standard work, reducing lead times there by nearly 50%. Actions like this enabled over 20% more LEAP shop visits in the third quarter year-over-year. Second, we're expanding internal capacity.
We're investing $1 billion in MRO over the next five years to create that capacity, add enhanced inspection techniques and expand repair capabilities. We've partnered with Lufthansa Technik to add a dedicated LEAP MRO shop in Poland, and we'll induct the first engine there here in the fourth quarter. And third, we're developing our third-party network, which provides customers flexibility and competitive options to ensure the best cost of ownership. Third-party MROs inducted a record number of LEAP shop visits in the third quarter. We're also pleased that Akasa Airlines recently announced the selection of ST Engineering to provide exclusive performance restoration shop visits for their fleet over the next 15 years. While there's more work to do, we're focused on servicing and delivering our engines faster without compromising safety and quality.
I'm confident our actions will enable us to increase output meaningfully into the fourth quarter and 2025. We're also growing our installed base with airlines and defense customers expanding and modernizing their fleets with our engines under wing. During the quarter, we won multiple services contracts for our customers' growing fleets. Avalon will add 75 new LEAP-1A-powered A320 aircraft to their existing fleet of over 300 CFM-powered aircraft. In widebodies, we secured commitments from EVA Air for GN -- GEnx engines and Qatar Airways for GE9X engines. In defense, the Polish Ministry of National Defense will add over 200 of our T700 engines to power their anticipated acquisition of 96 Boeing Apache, Guardian helicopters. We were also selected to overhaul and upgrade the GEnx-2B engines powering the U.S. Air Force's SAOC, the Survivable Airborne Operations Center, Boeing 747-8.
Turning to the future. RISE accelerates the development of new technologies that will pave the way for the next generation of aircraft and a more sustainable future. We recently began planning for dust ingestion tests on the open fan design earlier than ever before. This reflects key durability learnings from our engines operating in higher temperature environments. We're also advancing a new era of turboprop technology with a catalyst engine, completing engine level testing and certification expected in the coming months. Our defense products remain in demand for critical platforms globally. Our T901 engine is key to the modernization of Blackhawk and Apaches and has been progressing towards the next milestone of power-on and ground-runs. The maturity of our Digital Backbone for Bell's Future Long Range Assault Aircraft was critical for the U.S. Army to pass Milestone B and enter the next phase of development. We're also delivering continued success with our advanced technologies.
Our XA100 engine completed a fourth round of testing, and we are nearing completion of the detailed design for the U.S. Air Force's NGAP program. Stepping back, our path forward is clear, and we're confident we'll meet our customers' expectations today while developing the technologies of the future.
Rahul, over to you.
