Cirrus Aircraft notified its employees on June 1 that continued strong demand for its product line has increased the company’s new aircraft production rate to eight a week, bringing about callbacks of some furloughed employees at both its Duluth and Grand Forks facilities. It is the second such announcement, a similar one late in April having told of a production increase to six aircraft a week. Staffing increases were not required at that time. Cirrus expects the new production rate to affect at least 50 furloughed employees in coming weeks.
Cirrus said it had seen “consistent growth in new aircraft orders over the past 120 days,” with order rates outpacing production. New orders reflect domestic and international retail demand, as well as U.S. and global institutional demand, the company explained, adding that Cirrus Certified, the pre-owned aircraft sales division, also is seeing increased activity as inventory levels show “increasing signs of stabilization.”
Pat Waddick, executive vice president of operations, told Cirrus employees: “We are extremely pleased with continuing stronger sales trends that began in the first quarter. Unlike the recent change to six aircraft per week, today’s change to eight per week will take somewhat longer to implement due to required staffing increases and the commensurate impact on vendor lead times.
“We recognize the good news this represents to many furloughed members of the Cirrus family and we are moving as quickly as possible to determine the needed skill sets and to call those folks back to work,” he said.
Brent Wouters, president and CEO, added that the company’s progress has been made while maintaining a very disciplined and focused approach. “All Cirrus Aircraft partners – our customers, our employees, our vendors, and our ownership team – can take a measure of pride in these early results of our diligence and cooperation. The marketplace is responding to and validating the strength of our product line and the high quality and value inherent in our latest models. The recently announced ‘Flight Into Known Icing’ certification for SR22 and Turbo models and Cirrus Perspective by GarminTM integrated avionics suites across the product lineup are just two of the newer features that are catalyzing demand.”
Wouters continued, “At the same time, much hard work remains through this year and into next as we continue to navigate through a very challenging period. While today’s news is certainly reason for optimism and clearly another step in the right direction, we will maintain our determined approach and continue to make any adjustments necessary as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
For information: www.cirrusaircraft.com
