Cessna Fights Back On Private-Jet Trend

**Midnight Mike** · 02-15-2009, 11:35 AM

Orders for business jets nose-dived after lawmakers pilloried leaders of Detroit's Big Three auto makers for flying corporate planes to Washington to seek a government bailout. Now, one jet maker is striking back.

In a campaign to begin Wednesday, Cessna Aircraft Co. will run an ad that says, "Pity the poor executive who blinks," and gets rid of the company jet. "One thing is certain: true visionaries will continue to fly."

Across the industry, new orders for private jets have almost evaporated, and hundreds of existing customers have sought to defer or cancel orders that were placed in higher-flying days. In addition to layoffs, some jet makers have cut production by as much as 56%. Cessna, a unit of Textron Inc., is laying off more than 4,600 people, or roughly a third of its work force, to cope with the sudden drop in demand for private airplanes of all sizes.

Though much of the industry's reversal of fortune is due to the dismal economy, jet makers attribute part of it to the unexpected public backlash that erupted after the chief executives of Ford Motor Co., Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. traveled in private jets last year to ask Congress for billions of dollars in aid.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1234311 ... lenews_wsj

**cancidas** · 02-15-2009, 12:31 PM

they're right. as long as the company has a need and can sustain operating thier own aircraft they should, regardless of what the media may say. what the big three auto-execs did was just bad form, and they got nailed for it.

**Derf** · 02-15-2009, 03:34 PM

I do not think that is so....they can EASILY JUSTIFY using an Inexpensive jet....it you think that last statement is NOT
true, many people just do not understand that this is a 3 BILLION dollar company that employs one of the largest worker
base in the COUNTRY and that this issue is not really about 1 person flying in for the meeting, it is a team of lawyers,
CEO's, COO's, CFO's and so on. These are people whose time is worth soooo much money compared to you or me and
are making decisions that will change the 3 BILLION dollar company. The Government blasted them, and it was one
sided!

If you think that for one moment I did not understand that they went too far, things were well. The funny thing is that
the execs did nothing really wrong, it was the housing market with all the bad loans that caused the issues we face right
now.

I think the aircraft were justified and still are.....Important as this meeting was for their company, I also hope they had a
spare aircraft on hand in case they had equipment problems. There time is LOTS of money, and for them to sit on line at U.S. Air would be wasting lots of resources of a 3 Billion Dollar company's time.

I also do believe that they should be watched so they do not use as a toy and probably can not be trusted, but I do not
feel their use for that meeting was wrong. Moose in a previous thread was making a lot of sense and I did much reading.

It is nice to point a finger and "your bad" and that is what people want right now

Everyone will have a different take.... thats my $ .02

**moose135** · 02-15-2009, 04:19 PM

Fred, let me give you something else to think about...

There are certainly companies that have a need for corporate jets, and use them as a tool in business, whether it is for executive business travel, getting to remote locations and such. I wonder, though, if every company with a jet really needs it, or do they use it because they have it. Perhaps could they make do with a NetJets or other charter, or even commercial travel, but since they bought the jet, and it's sitting in the hangar, they use it all the time. Those are the companies that say "Of course we need it - look how much we use it!" when in fact, if they had to make a cost justification for each flight (through a lease/charter program), they might pick another option.

**Matt Molnar** · 02-15-2009, 04:42 PM

I guess the key advantage of owning your own jet is you can use it on a moment's notice, whereas with a fractional jet you typically need to book it with significant lead time, from several hours to a whole day ahead.

I would argue a company like Starbucks or GM could certainly get away with a NetJets type deal since they're just using it to travel on corporate retreats or wine and dine investors...activities that are normally planned out well in advance. On the other hand a Citigroup, bailout or not, sometimes needs to be able to fly to remote airports to close massive deals at a moment's notice...they should have a jet.

**dimamo1983** · 02-15-2009, 08:07 PM

Actually, many, many companies combine jet ownership with fractional ownership and charter to supplement their lift and avoid just the situation described above - having unused jets sitting in their hangars. In fact, most of the biggest corporate departments do it and the two main reasons are:
- Using the right aircraft for the job. It allows the flight departments to own aircraft that are appropriate for majority of the missions and when different mission profile is required, a smaller or bigger jet may be used.
- Additional short term capacity - using additional lift in those rare cases when own aircraft cannot fly all the people that need to fly.

People and companies that can afford to own business aircraft did not get to that point by making stupid decisions all around.

On a separate note, it is sad to see Cessna breaking up with their ad agency. These ads are some of the most elegant I have seen. In fact, the first thing I when I get my AIN is go to the back page and see which Cessna ad they have there :)

Dima