I'd like to turn now to a brief report on the state of your company, noting first that this site and our company are bookends in literal and figurative senses of the word. We definitely have aerospace roots, but our oldest UTC company is Otis, which literally saw its beginnings on this site, Bryant Park, on the occasion of the Crystal Palace Exposition in 1853. Then, Elisha Otis, the inventor of the safety elevator and the founder of the industry, demonstrated his apparatus by cutting the traditional hemp support rope and proving the integrity of the mechanical device arresting the platform's otherwise certain descent. You will forgive me if I claim that the audience "went wild" in the modern terminology, resulting in headlines and commercial recognition and success that led in time to today's $30 billion global elevator industry and Otis' continuous leadership of the business ever since that fateful day here, on this very site.
We can also thank the New York Public Library as long time and current customers of both Otis and Carrier Corporation, whose equipment is in this building.
It's also not too great a stretch to note that this Library is among the truly most open complexes and institutions and data bases in the world, and that we aspire that UTC be held to the same standards and expectations. At a time when corporate behaviors can be questioned if not challenged, I like a phrase about us that I have used on many occasions, "What you see is what you get."
Our world changed with everybody else's on September 11. The aftermath caused us to revise downward our investors' consensus outlook for fourth quarter 2001 earnings for the first time in 34 quarters. It led to an expectation of essentially flat earnings for 2002 before the recent FAS 142 goodwill accounting change. Throughout, we demonstrated the validity of our earnings and business models at UTC and the robustness of our companies. It's not necessary to more than note that a quarter of our total volume goes to commercial aviation, which is experiencing its most precipitous volume and pricing pressure since 1992 and likely forever. U.S. airline operating losses last year exceeded $8 billion and may approach half that this year. Carrier's shorter cycle markets have also been under pressure.
Earnings per share as reported for 2001 grew 8% from 2000. Before a restructuring charge arising from September 11, they grew 13%. Available cash flow again was exceptionally strong, at 98% of net income. We used this cash flow to acquire companies, building on our market leading franchises (what we like to call "more of the core") and totaling $525 million. We used it also to repurchase $599 million worth of our common stock, bringing that share repurchase program to 117 million shares since its inception in 1994. Because of strong cash flow, we have been able to reduce UTC's total common stock outstanding over this period by 6%, in spite of shares issued for options and the acquisition of Sundstrand Corporation in 1999. We also combined this strong cash flow with curtailed capital spending and deferred acquisitions after September 11 to build the Corporation's liquidity. Net debt-to-capital declined six percentage points over the year, to 29%.
Commercial aviation is recovering, although the recovery is by no means complete. Traffic for the U.S. carriers worldwide is still down by about 10% in the first quarter, and seats are being filled at significantly discounted prices. Nevertheless, most forecasts call for a recovery to pre-September 11 levels by the end of the year. Powered flight is a fact and convenience of modern life, and we can justifiably affirm confidence in aviation's future.
We had some hugely important contract wins in 2001. Largest was the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase of the Joint Strike Fighter program, called the largest military procurement ever. Five thousand or more aircraft may be built over the total program. UTC's content includes Pratt & Whitney as the lead engine producer and Hamilton Sundstrand as the provider of the electric generation and power conversion systems, and our business volumes may approach $50 billion in the aggregate. Initial production has also just begun on the F-22 Raptor fighter where Pratt & Whitney is the sole source engine producer. These two fighters are the next generations for our Armed Forces, and potentially internationally, and are truly extraordinary wins for us.
We won the environmental control system and the auxiliary power unit on the new Airbus A380 super jumbo. With our partner, General Electric, we compete for the engines on the same airplane and have had major contract wins with Air France and Emirates.
The Comanche helicopter team of Boeing and Sikorsky continued its work on the Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract for this stealthy reconnaissance/attack aircraft. Twelve hundred aircraft may be produced over program life for a value exceeding $30 billion. Sikorsky received a contract to develop uprgrades to the U.S. Army's Black Hawk helicopters, which could lead to modernization of 2,000 helicopters over two decades. Additional customers selected and placed deposits for the S-92 helicopter.
We saw our share of orders for aero-derivative industrial turbine engines increase to more than 30 percent in 2001, and sales more than doubled. We created a separate UTC Power organization to focus our developments in distributed generation (i.e. other than central power plants). UTC Power includes our new microturbine products, as well as UTC Fuel Cells and the aero-derivative industrial engine business.
A UTC-powered Hyundai Santa Fe SUV was rated best-in-class on noise and efficiency measures in a competition sponsored by Michelin. We announced earlier this year an agreement with Nissan to develop components and systems for fuel cell powered vehicles.
Carrier won the largest contract ever for container refrigeration systems, from P&O Nedlloyd for 14,500 units.
Otis' new elevator orders worldwide increased 11 percent at constant foreign exchange. Of special note as we sit here today was the extraordinary total of $100 million of new elevator awards to Otis in New York City alone in the second half of 2001. Essentially every high-rise elevator award came to Otis and including such landmarks as the new AOL Time Warner headquarters at Columbus Circle, the Bloomberg tower on Lexington Avenue, and a Goldman Sachs building in Jersey City. Otis began on this site in New York in 1853, and it's fair to say that Otis is still going strong, in New York and worldwide, really strong.
2001 was not without disappointments. Carrier's operating income performance led our list. The problems were in slower and less effective integration of acquisitions than we would have liked and with a hard push for growth while markets were peaking. We have since refocused on cost reductions and operating effectiveness, and we like the signs we see now.
Looking past 2002's challenge of commercial aviation and an economy beginning to recover, we affirm confidence in UTC's outlook and ability to grow earnings. Available cash flow in the range of net income will continue to fund acquisitions in our core franchises, as well as share repurchases. UTC total R&D spending remains high at $2.2 billion annually and promises a continuation of the inventions and innovations that have been at the heart of our company forever. We see ample investment to grow our revenues over the long term at the 7+ percent guideline rate we have given to investors. We're also confident in our continued ability to expand margins. While these have tripled as percents of revenues over the last ten years, we still have significant room until we get to our top quartile goal among peers. This is also a proven agenda for UTC.
Looking at 2002, the current year, we affirm current investor expectations of 90 cents per share in earnings per share for the first quarter of this year and $4.32 for earnings per share for the full year. That's 13 percent higher for the year than the $3.83 we reported for 2001, although it does include some benefit from the accounting change mandated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, so-called 142.
As we look ahead for the quarter, for the half, and for the year, we feel just fine.
It's a good time and the best time to thank our 150,000 employees worldwide. I do so on behalf of all of us as shareholders.
This is a great and proven and senior management team. It proved itself well in the wake of September 11th, just as it always does and always will.
This document includes "forward looking statements" that are subject to risks and uncertainties. For information identifying economic, political, climatic, currency, regulatory, technological, competitive and some other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements, see UTC's SEC filings as updated from time to time, including, but not limited to, the discussion included in the Business section of UTC's Annual Report on Form 10-K under the headings "Description of Business by Segment" and "Other Matters Relating to the Corporation's Business as a Whole" and the information included in UTC's 10-K and 10-Q reports under the heading "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations and Financial Position."
