The awful events of September staggered the airlines, and us as well, but the airline industry's crisis provided GE with the opportunity to prove there is no higher priority in this business than supporting our customers. We have thrown our lot in with theirs as we work to get through the tough months ahead.

 We moved quickly after the attack, deploying more GE teams to our airline customers worldwide. We helped them with their cash flow crises with payment deferral plans and other financing arrangements. To help their financial positions long-term, we developed and are implementing programs to reduce engine overhaul turnaround times, improve on-wing engine life and lower maintenance costs.

Throughout 2001, we deployed At the Customer, For the Customer Six Sigma quality teams to our commercial and military customer sites, where they completed 3,000 cost-saving projects – projects that assumed even greater significance in September.

This business has mobilized, permanently, in the service of our customers.

Despite the post-September 11 adjustments, GE Aircraft Engines delivered higher revenues and earnings in 2001, reflecting our expanding engine fleet in service, as well as our productivity gains from Six Sigma and Digitization.

Aircraft Engines increased our technical leadership in 2001. We are beautifully positioned in the rapidly expanding regional jet market. These jets are taking over routes once flown by propeller planes while creating entirely new route structures. The vast majority of 50-, 70- and 90-passenger regional jets – in operation or in development – are powered by GE's CF34 engines. At the close of 2001, we had a firm and option order backlog for nearly 5,000 of these engines.

 We are closely watching the immense potential of China's regional jet opportunity. Besides the three regional airplane manufacturers that are competing there, China is looking at building its own airplane, and we are supporting that effort as well.

In larger engines – the largest, to be precise – our GE90-115B for the longer-range Boeing 777s is the world's most powerful jet engine. We are pouring much of the technology that created the GE90 family into the thousands of engines across our customers' fleets, endlessly improving their performance and lowering their operating costs.

On the military side, we are proudly contributing to the war on terrorism, with our major emphasis being the fast and accurate delivery of critical hardware and services in support of the forces engaged in the anti-terrorism campaign. In this war, a wide variety of U.S. military aircraft – from stealth bombers and fighters, including F/A-18s, to virtually every combat helicopter – is powered by GE engines.

 We have every confidence that the military efforts will be successful and that our customers in commercial aviation, with us by their side, will come through these difficult times and return to the long-term growth trajectory we anticipated before September in this critical global industry.

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