Who will lead Honeywell’s soon-to-be divested aerospace business, and where that business will be based, remain unsettled.
But those details are now being considered by the company’s board of directors and will be revealed before year-end, says Honeywell chief executive Vimal Kapur.
The discussions come as Honeywell prepares in 2026 to divest its Honeywell Aerospace Technologies division into a separate publicly traded company called Honeywell Aerospace.
The aerospace business is now based in Phoenix and led by sector CEO Jim Currier, a longtime Honeywell executive. Honeywell has not yet confirmed the post-spin leadership team.
“As our planned separation of aerospace in the second half of 2026 approaches, our board has been intensely focused on assembling a Honeywell Aerospace leadership team, with the right mix of industry, company and capital market experiences,” Kapur said on 23 October, the day Honeywell released its third-quarter financial results.
“We expect to make an aerospace leadership and headquarters announcement later this year,” he adds.
Honeywell is in the midst of an overhaul that will see it split into several businesses, similar to the break up completed last year by General Electric.
First to go will be Honeywell’s chemicals and materials business, which the firm intends to jettison on 30 October into a separate publicly traded company called Solstice Advanced Materials.
The planned 2026 aerospace spin off will leave the original Honeywell business with the firm’s automation businesses.
Currier has said the spin will give Honeywell Aerospace ability to operate its business as it sees fit, without constraints imposed by a corporate owner. Analysts view the move as possibly enabling a broader turnaround, prompting Honeywell Aerospace to invest more in product development, introduce fresh products and improve customer relations.
Honeywell’s aerospace business generated $15.5 billion in revenue last year, making it among the world’s top aerospace firms.
The spin-off comes as Honeywell’s aerospace division benefits from robust demand. The segment turned a $1.2 billion third-quarter profit, up 9% year on year, with $4.5 billion in sales, a 15% year on year bump, Honeywell reports.
Commercial aerospace aftermarket sales were up 19% from the third quarter of 2024, it notes.
Honeywell now expects the aerospace business’s full-year 2025 sales will increase in the low-double-digital percentage range, year on year. It previously had predicted high-single-digit growth.
“Commercial aftermarket sales should expand at a healthy rate, with air transparent growth outpacing business aviation,” says Honeywell chief financial officer Mike Stepniak. “We anticipate commercial [equipment] sales growth to accelerate for the remainder of the year.”
Currier became CEO of Honeywell Aerospace Technologies in August 2023. He previously held several other positions in the aerospace division, including vice-president of North American airlines, president of aftermarket services for Europe, the Middle east, Africa and India, and president of electronic solutions.
Currier joined Honeywell in 2006.
