Caterpillar flies from Fort Worth to Peoria after Q1 earnings beat

Caterpillar’s Bombardier Global 6000, tail N797CT, departed Perot Field in Fort Worth at 1:36 p.m. local time on May 18 and landed near Peoria, Illinois, 1 hour 41 minutes later. The flight arrives as the company digests its first-quarter 2026 earnings, which beat Wall Street expectations with adjusted profit per share of $5.54, per a Caterpillar press release. The strong results were driven by a 22% jump in sales and revenues to $17.4 billion, fueled by surging demand for power-generation equipment used in AI data centers.

The trip from Texas—home to many energy and data-center customers—follows a pattern of executive travel tied to Caterpillar’s strategic push into power and energy. The company announced plans to triple its large reciprocating engine capacity from 2024 levels, citing orders from data-center and oil-and-gas clients, as reported by Manufacturing Dive. CEO Joe Creed, who was elected chairman in January, noted on the earnings call that first-quarter tariff costs reached $600 million, but the company raised its 2030 growth targets.

This flight echoes an earlier trip on May 7, when the same aircraft flew from near San Francisco to Fort Worth. That routing suggests meetings with West Coast technology firms, a key customer base for Caterpillar’s backup and primary power generators. With a record backlog and a fleet that regularly visits mining hubs in Australia and Saudi Arabia, the company’s aviation movements increasingly mirror its pivot toward the invisible infrastructure of the modern economy.