Cessna CEO Jack Pelton has told the NBAA Convention in Orlando, Florida, that the company is seeing some optimistic signs for the business aviation market, while also announcing increased performance figures for the Citation CJ4 and a new flight planning tool.
“I’m far from ready to call a turnaround, but we do continue to see some encouraging developments,” said Pelton. “Financing is more readily available, used aircraft inventory is lowering and prices for used aircraft have increased for the first time in several quarters. Average daily utilisation figures for the Citation fleet have stopped dropping and bookings for maintenance work are on the rise. We are seeing signs of stabilisation and some indicators that the business jet market is starting to move in a positive direction. Single engine retail sales have been particularly strong in recent weeks which is usually a forerunner for the rest of the product line.”
The manufacturer also released increased operational performance data for the Citation CJ4. Cessna says results of engineering flight testing have validated significant performance enhancements including a maximum speed of 452kt, a range of 1963nm with two crew and five passengers, and a direct climb to 45,000ft in 28 minutes at maximum takeoff weight.
Cessna also announced that it will offer a new GreenTrak Flight Planning software suite which uses a process known as cost indexing to minimise total trip cost by balancing the costs of direct operation, fuel burn and carbon emissions, and is intended for compliance with the European emissions trading scheme. Cessna plans to release GreenTrak as an upgrade option to its CESNAV program in 2010 for all current production Citations.
