Cessna executives re-affirmed their commitment to investing in the light jet sector, despite a fifth year of declining demand for Mustangs and the Citation CJ series and few positive signs pointing to an imminent turnaround.
The company is doubling the number of sales staff in the Geneva-based European sales office, where demand has been slowest to recover from the 2008 global financial meltdown, says Kriya Shortt, Cessna's new senior vice-president of sales.
Cessna is also opening service centres to support its entire product line-up in Europe, despite the market doldrums. "We want to continue to focus on that market," says Shortt.
The company's commitment to the light jet sector it largely defined with the arrival of the CitationJet in the late-1960s, has been challenged by a prolonged recession.
While demand quickly recovered for large-cabin jets, the light jet segment has continued to struggle - especially at Cessna. Company executives slowed production in the second quarter of 2013 after an expected recovery failed to materialise.
"You look at the Mustangs, we've made 425 of them," says Cessna chief executive Scott Ernest. "The competition has made several hundred there. You start to ask yourself, 'How saturated is that market?' You can go buy a used Mustang for $2 million - that is a fantastic plane."
In addition to concerns about market saturation, Cessna says potential light jet customers still have trouble financing new orders and are sometimes driven away by economic concerns.
"Is there really a strong demand and need for another 200-a-year of the light jets? My own feeling is no, there isn't," says Ernest. "
I just don't see the market. The availability of funds to be able to finance that type of product is difficult. People still have a lot of questions with regard to the economies of Europe, the economies of the USA. It's just a market that needs a lot of consumer confidence going forward."
Source: Flight Daily News
