GE Aviation, a unit of General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), warned that it expects orders to be cut in half this year amid the ongoing recession. Jack Lutze, the unit's vice president of sales for Europe and Africa, told Reuters that deferrals are rising as airlines postpone spending on new jets. "Everybody is looking to push back 2010," explained the VP.
On the plus side, Lutze reports that GE Aviation has an order backlog that should translate to years' worth of production -- leftovers from a period of expansion earlier this decade in the airline industry. "This industry lurches from boom to bust," he observed. "We lag the industry on the way down and on the way up."



