US lighting and electronics firm Astronics revised its 2009 revenue guidance after losing a military contract it had expected to win.

The East Aurora, New York-based company lowered its full-year revenue expectations to between $190 million and $200 million from earlier guidance of between $200 million to $210 million.

The revision comes after Astronics lost a competitive bid to provide the US Marine Corps ground radio maintenance and test systems. Continued weakness in commercial transport and business jet markets also drove the new projections.

"We had fully expected to be successful in winning this contract from our major customer, and we are clearly disappointed," Astronics president and CEO Peter Gundermann says in a statement. "However, we believe that there are several other opportunities with the technology that we have developed for a variety of domestic and foreign military applications. Coupled with this unexpected loss of the contract, we continue to see orders from the commercial transport and business jet markets being pushed out, which has further moderated our outlook."

Source: Flight International