The COVID-19 pandemic “significantly impacted” earnings at Honeywell in the second quarter of 2020, the prime contractor for several major Department of Energy defense-nuclear sites said Friday.
Company-wide, quarterly revenue fell almost 20% year over year to about $7.5 billion. Quarterly net income from continuing operations was down about 10% to just over $2.5 billion, or $1.53 per share. That is down from $2.10 a share in the second quarter of 2019.
In Honeywell’s Aerospace segment, which provides the top-line management and corporate reachback for the DOE nuclear contracts, quarterly sales plunged 28% to about $2.5 billion, mostly because of starkly lower demand from the commercial aviation aftermarket. Segment operating profit cratered by more than 40% from the previous year, to just over $525 million.
Among other things, Honeywell Aerospace is a supplier for Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft, which remains grounded after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. On top of that, COVID-19 has sharply curtailed commercial air bookings. Aerospace is Honeywell’s largest operating segment by revenue, and it posted by far the worst results of the parent’s four business units, which also are: Building Technologies; Performance Materials and Technologies; and Safety and Productivity Solutions.
Honeywell is the owner or partner in contractors, organized as limited liability corporations, that manage four Department of Energy facilities:
- Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, a Honeywell subsidiary at the Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri.
- National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a Honeywell subsidiary at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
- Mission Support and Test Services, a Honeywell-majority team with Jacobs and Huntington Ingalls at the Nevada National Security Site.
- Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, a Honeywell-minority team with Fluor and Huntington Ingalls at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
