Surging demand from airlines for new engines propelled Rolls-Royce's order book 15% higher to a record £70 billion as it reported a big jump in half-year profits.
The engineering giant said orders including a 4 billion US dollar (£2.6 billion) deal with Singapore Airlines to power 50 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft boosted demand for its civil engines 14% to £56.7 billion.
Underlying pre-tax profits leapt 34% to £840 million during the first six months of the year, lifted by more work and restructuring, as shares rose 3% to match a record high after the results beat City expectations.
Revenues were 27% higher to £7.3 billion, driven by surging sales across its civil, defence, marine and energy divisions.
Orders for Trent engines for large aircraft dominated Rolls' order book, helping it grow market share.
Rolls hailed a milestone with its most efficient Trent XWB engine when it powered an Airbus A350 jumbo jet for the first time in June. It has already booked 1,400 orders for the engine, which will help reduce jet emissions by 16%.
Underlying profits in its civil aerospace arm leapt 59% to £486 million, as engine deliveries increased 11% to 346.
It won orders from carriers including Air China, Hong Kong Airlines, United Airlines and British Airways owner International Airlines Group.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article