April 6, 2026

The below transcript is a translation of the podcast audio that has been machine generated by Notta.

Hi everyone, this is Taylor St. Germain from ITR Economics. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of TrendsTalk. We at ITR, you’re a political and unbiased source of economic intelligence. And today I wanted to talk through aerospace and defense and particularly two data sets, two industry benchmarks that we forecast on a regular basis here at ITR Economics. One is from our manufacturing dash, from our manufacturing segment of our Trends Report, that is US civilian aircraft equipment production.

The reason I wanted to bring this data set up is because it’s one of the highest growth rate, highest forecasted growth rate segments that we have for 2026 in our manufacturing dashboard. Again, all of this comes straight from the Trends Report. So you can head over there and check it out. But we are forecasting civilian aircraft equipment production to grow 13.5% in 2026. That is outpacing most all manufacturing vertical markets. Of course, there’s some exceptions with semiconductors and data centers, some of the higher technology, but civilian aircraft equipment production is outpacing a number of these markets in 2026. And we expect it to be a substantial growth area for folks out there.

Now, there are always some nuances we have to unpack as it relates to aerospace, particularly here in the US with Boeing. But we’ve seen some positive trends out of Boeing’s publicly reported data as of late. We track Boeing’s commercial aircraft orders. That is, we’re seeing those orders after declining for most of ’24, even into ’25 have actually started to resurge. They’re seeing an uptick in orders again, when we look at Boeing’s orders, 12 month moving average. So that’s a real positive. We’ve also seen Boeing deliveries continue to accelerate on a 12 month moving total basis. So taking a step back from orders and looking at delivery specifically, we’ve seen that number jump up to around 600 on the 12 month moving total.

So it’s still below the pre-pandemic levels, but building momentum compared to the bottom where Boeing was essentially below 180 back in the heart of the pandemic. So we’ve got civilian aircraft equipment production growing north of 13%. We’re seeing Boeing’s orders accelerate. We’re seeing Boeing’s deliveries accelerate. So there’s some real positives for the aerospace industry overall this year. Another data series that we’re tracking very closely is aerospace products and parts production, which is another sub segment. And that too, yes, below the pre-pandemic level, but is climbing out and continuing to accelerate. So folks, whether you’re looking at parts, data, deliveries, orders, production, there’s a number of these data sets all moving in the right direction. And aerospace will be a great area to offset some of the weakness in other growth manufacturing sectors if your company has that type of diversity. So it’s a real positive this year.

I wanted to talk about another positive as well. Just, I think we could all use some good news lately, especially in the world of economics and the defense market, another area of opportunity. Now want to be careful talking about defense. I’m just here to talk about the data and the reality of the situation. Obviously there’s a lot going on overseas that requires defense. There’s demand for defense. And we’re seeing that from the new ordering trend. This is US Defense Capital Goods New Orders. It does come from the Census Bureau. ITR Economics produce a three-year forecast for this data set. And we have Defense Capital Goods New Orders growing at 4.4% this year and another 10.1% next year. And that’s a real important point because in 2027, we have most of the industrial economy slowing. But defense on the other hand, essentially counter cyclical to that will be growing and accelerating next year.

Defense, the defense industry is on our list of also markets that we’re excited about even during the 2030 downturn. Maybe the excited’s over blowing and I should say we’re less concerned with in the 2030s. We expect the defense industry to be more resilient. It is today, orders are growing. We expect orders to only accelerate into next year. And it’s a great long-term market for us. When we look at the actual dollars attached to the defense industry, we are forecasting $192.9 billion of new ordering activity of defense capital goods in 2026. That number jumps up to 212.4 billion next year. So folks, I know there’s some markets out there that might be a little bit sluggish, right? We see metalworking new orders still below the year ago level, automotives down. There are still some markets that are taking a bit longer than others to climb out of the weakness of the last 12 to 18 months. Aerospace and defense are not those markets.

Both of these markets are growing. We have additional growth for the second half of 2026. And there are places where if you can allocate some of your time and resources, it’ll likely be money well spent. So just wanted to highlight some of the positives. Again, I think we could use some positives in defense and aerospace for 2026. Definitely check those boxes.

Folks, I’m always trying to give you information that’s pertinent to you. I love to cover macro trends. I love to cover individual markets. Please reach out to me on LinkedIn. Continue to reach out to ITR economics with topics that are on your mind. We’re always trying to find ways to make trends talk better and more applicable to you all. And we love to hear from you. So please find us on LinkedIn. Please head over to our website and let us know what’s on your mind so I can continue to tailor these podcasts to the most pertinent information.

But for now, I hope you found this helpful. Thanks for joining me on this episode of TrendsTalk. Please like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And I look forward to seeing you all in the next one. Thanks so much. Take care for now.