Pat Waddick, Cirrus Aircraft’s president of innovation and operations recently said the company has more than 600 jet customers waiting for their airplanes to be delivered. This is great news for the General Aviation industry and American manufacturing. This sales number has been mentioned in aviation articles, but the discussion quickly moves on to another topic.
Cirrus jets are priced at about $2 million apiece which makes these sales a $1,200,000,000 book of business! Each customer has paid $100K upfront. That’s $60M in deposit payments! Has there ever been a light aircraft pre-sales book of business comparable to this in the history of GA?
Who are these Vision Jet customers? Why did they write that $100,000 deposit check years ago? What compelled a decision even before the jet was certified? Many of the position holders want to remain
anonymous. But we do know ~75% of them are Cirrus piston pilots. And, the book of business is global. About eighty of the 600 early position jets are scheduled for Latin America alone.
Most light aircraft manufacturers’ shipments are flat or seeing a slowdown. Naysayers complain the outlook isn’t changing. But the view only changes for the leader – as they say in dog-sledding. Cirrus innovation is winning sales and transforming GA. We need to see more of that.
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