John C. Plant
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Howmet Aerospace
Thank you, Ken, and let's move to slide 13. Moving to ESG, I'd I encourage you to read our sustainability report found at howmet.com in the Investors section. For Howmet Aerospace, environmental, social and governance is about generating meaningful change for a more sustainable future, improving our diversity and inclusion inside our company and in the communities in which we operate. Regarding employee safety, we are maintaining attention on safety through and certain operational conditions presented by COVID-19. Total recordable incidents continue to be significantly better than the aerospace and defense industry average. For 2020, we had a 20% year-over-year improvement in rate to 0.71. Additionally, 84% of our locations worldwide were without a lost workday incident. This is a tremendous testament to the dedication and focus of our workforce.
We continue to underscore the importance and power of diversity, equity and inclusion in our company. We value the rich diversity of expertise, backgrounds and viewpoints that fuel our innovation, and we are committed to improving diversity of employees at all levels. Recently, we were recognized by the 50/50 Women on Boards organization for our commitment to board diversity. In addition to gender diversity, we also partnered with key external organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Hispanic Corporate Council and Diversity Best Practices, to review and continuously improve our initiatives. With respect to sustainability, nowhere is this more evident than in the products that we provide to our customers. Our proprietary technologies help reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions contributing to the aerospace industry's goal of a smaller carbon footprint.
Five specific areas are at the bottom left of the slide. For commercial aerospace, next-generation jet engine technology reduces fuel consumption by approximately 15%. Moreover, Howmet's increased content on composite aircraft of 2 times contributes to lightweighting solutions and reduces fuel use as composite aircraft are approximately 20% more fuel efficient than comparable metallic aircraft. For Forged Wheels, Howmet's aluminum wheels are 5 times stronger than steel while being 47% lighter. Customers can realize up to 1,400 pounds of weight savings from retrofitting an 18-wheeler Class eight truck of steel to aluminum wheels. For IGT, Howmet's products continue to enable higher operating temperatures in the turbine and also pressures, which increase the load efficiency towards approximately 64% and reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by approximately 40%.
Lastly, for renewables, Howmet's Fastening Systems used with solar panels improve strength and clamping by 5 times to 10 times and reduce installation time by up to 80%. Moving to STEM education and inclusiveness. Howmet is dedicated to increasing STEM opportunities and education in the local community through the Howmet Aerospace Foundation with grants to institutions and schools. Also, we renewed our commitment to support our six employee resource groups with strategic focus on community, culture and careers. Let me now move to slide 14 for our third quarter and annual guidance. The leading indicators for air travel continue to show improvement, notably for domestic travel. This includes online searches for air tickets, increases in flight schedules across most of the world and beginnings of some international travel. Orders for aircraft by airlines and assembly partners are increasing rapidly.
The expectation that Howmet will transition into revenue growth in the third quarter continues with growth of approximately 15% in commercial aerospace and total revenue growth of approximately 9%. We look forward to managing and leading this exciting growth phase for Howmet after the devastation of the pandemic on the industry. Growth is expected to continue into Q4 and into 2021 -- sorry, 2022 and beyond. The sequence of our business is that we expect increases in the Engine business, notably starting in the third quarter, followed by Structures in the fourth quarter; and Fastener, starting in the first quarter of 2022. In terms of specific numbers, we expect the following: for the third quarter, revenue of $1.3 billion, plus or minus $20 million; EBITDA of $295 million, plus or minus $10 million; EBITDA margin of 22.7%, plus or minus 40 basis points; and earnings per share of $0.25, plus or minus $0.02.
And for the year, we expect revenue to be $5.1 billion, plus or minus $50 million; EBITDA baseline to increase to $1.17 billion, plus or minus -- plus $15 million, minus $25 million; EBITDA margin to increase to 22.9%, plus 10 basis points and minus 20 basis points; earnings per share increase to $0.99, plus or minus $0.03; cash flow baseline increase to $450 million, plus or minus $35 million. Moving to the right-hand side of the slide, we expect the following: second half revenue to be up approximately 12% versus the first half, driven by commercial aerospace, defense and IGT; second half year-over-year incremental margins of over 50% compared to the prior year. Price increases will continue to be greater than 2020. The cost reduction carryover of $100 million is already achieved with some potential modest upside. Pension and OPEB contributions of approximately $120 million.
We are reducing cash pension contributions by approximately $40 million based upon the American Rescue Plan Act. capex should be in the range of $200 million to $220 million compared to depreciation of approximately $270 million. Adjusted free cash flow conversion continues to be in excess of net income at approximately 100%. Lastly, as announced last month, we have reinstated the quarterly dividend of $0.02 per common stock, starting in the third quarter. Now let's move to slide 15 for a summary. The second quarter was solid, and it's described as a quarter to get through while we look for the volume lift in the third quarter. It was better than expectations with improved margins and excellent cash flow. The net recruitment of production operators in the second quarter was approximately 300 people, principally in our Engine business. And we, of course, will continue to manage costs very carefully during this recovery phase.
In the second half, we plan to recruit another net 500 people. Liquidity is strong, and we have healthy cash generation. The third quarter outlook is for revenue to be approximately $100 million higher than the second quarter with margins somewhere between 22.3% and 23.1%. For the second half, we expect extra costs. However, year-over-year incremental margins are expected to be over 50%. Consolidated EBITDA margins for the second half are expected to be 22.6% to 23.2%, setting a platform for a healthy 2022 And overcoming the drag of the increased labor costs from the recruitment I talked about and the cost of net -- the net effect of the metal recoveries. Thank you very much, and we'll take your questions.