Citing a weak business jet market where financing is hard to get and buyers are leery, Hawker Beechcraft last week laid off 300 more employees and has stopped matching 401(k) retirement contributions for the next year. The latest round of layoffs brings to 3,100 the number of positions Hawker Beechcraft has cut since November, a 32-percent reduction, the Wichita Eagle reported. Hawker is also shuffling some of its management, with three vice presidents resigning last week. About half of the most recent layoffs affect union production line employees, while the rest are spread throughout the rest of the company.

Three months after suspending development on a wide-body business jet that would have had a global range, Cessna last week said it is terminating the program altogether. Cessna planned to invest nearly $800 million in the Columbus jet, which would have involved building a $200 million production plant in Wichita, Kan., as well as hiring 1,000 new employees, the Wichita Eagle reported. The end of the program before construction had even started on a new factory is a blow to the city, which was counting on hundreds of construction jobs and as many as 3,000 new jobs at Cessna’s suppliers. Cessna gave few reasons for why it canceled the Columbus program, beyond broad statements about how the business jet market has deteriorated in the last year amid the deep global recession. In a financial filing, the company said it was taking a $43 million loss on the development of the jet so far. While the company said it might build a wide-body business jet in the future, that program would not be the same as the Columbus. The $27 million jet would have had a 4,000 mile range and would have seated up to 10 passengers, putting it in a league with top-of-the-line business jets from Gulfstream and Bombardier. Cessna said it plans to return $10 million in incentives to Wichita and the county by the end of the month. In a scramble last year to secure the Columbus program, local and state governments in Kansas pledged tens of millions of dollars in incentives for Cessna.

For all the doom-saying among business jet manufacturers in recent months, the attendance figures at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Geneva last week told a different story: People are still very interested in business jets. EBACE attracted nearly 11,000 people this year, the third-highest attendance level in its nine years, organizers said in a news release. While manufacturers found reasons to make announcements, there were no unveilings of globe-circling jets this year. Several companies said they were expanding their global service networks and highlighted recent sales overseas. In a speech on opening day, Cessna CEO Jack Pelton said his company has made it through the worst of the economic downturn, according to a Cessna news release. Sales, though sluggish by last year’s standards, remain solid for the company, Pelton said, with 69 jets and 66 propeller planes delivered in the first three months of this year. Cessna has cut 20 percent of its workforce, closed down a production facility in Oregon and suspended development on the Columbus long-range jet program. But Pelton says Cessna continues to spend the same proportion of its revenue on research and development this year as in past years.

By the middle of this year, 20 percent of all business jets in the air could also be for sale, twice the rate during normal economic times. Dealers of used planes are hoping that will be the peak, and that as the year progresses, some of those planes will start selling, marking a turning point in what has been a dismal year so far for new and used aircraft sales, the Wichita Eagle reported. While there were nearly 3,000 business jets up for sale at the end of February, few of those deals are actually closing, even with prices off as much as 25 percent compared to a year ago. Many buyers are having trouble getting financing, which means some of the planes on the market may never sell. But dealers say they’re getting an increasing number of calls from interested potential buyers, and slightly fewer calls from owners looking to sell their planes. That’s a good sign, however small and anecdotal, for the industry.

Those in debt often fear the repo man, staking out boats, cars and other vehicles to haul them away in the middle of the night from their unsuspecting owners. Ken Hill does something similar, except not at night and often with the help of owners. Banks call him to repossess aircraft, and his business could reach two repossessions per week this year, twice the number as last year, the New York Times reported. While it can take time for Hill to find the planes he’s tasked to repossess, once he tracks them down he contacts the owner and makes sure a mechanic inspects each plane before the takes it back to the bank. Some owners pay up. Others realize they won’t be able to get out of their situation and hand over maintenance logs and other documents to make Hill’s job easier. Hill has gone after everything from a Piper 180 – his first repossession – to a turboprop Piper Meridian and a Gulfstream business jet. He carries a wide selection of keys that fit the outer doors and ignitions of most planes. He also makes sure he takes a portable GPS and handheld transceiver on each job, just in case the owner has stripped some of the avionics.

When the air taxi company DayJet shut down its operations last month, the 1,500 Eclipse jets it had on order vanished from the books. But the 28 that DayJet was flying were very real and now Eclipse, which was leasing them to DayJet, is selling them to the public, the company said in a news release. The planes are some of the first Eclipse produced, so none have the most current version of the Avio flight deck and some have the very first iteration of Avio up front. None of the planes are approved for flight into known icing, and depending on configuration, the planes have a range of 950 to 1,125 nautical miles. Some of the planes have weather and terrain warning systems installed, while others don’t. Buyers get the planes as-is (some have partial warranties remaining), complete with DayJet livery and leather seats with the defunct company’s logo. None of the planes have more than 450 cycles on them. Eclipse did not return a call asking for the price range of the used jets. New ones sell for $2.15 million and used jets are currently on the market for as much as $1.8 million.

In anticipation of this week’s National Business Aviation Association Expo in Orlando, two well known manufacturers announced new models. Hawker Beechcraft unveiled the King Air 350i turboprop and Gulfstream showed off the G250 mid-size business jet. The new 350i has a larger cabin and features a number of passenger improvements, from high-definition screens to window shades that automatically dim, the company said in a news release. The seats in the cabin can be easily rearranged or removed, allowing room for up to eight people or seating for four with half the cabin available for baggage. The $6.5 million turboprop is expected to start flight tests this month, with deliveries beginning in late 2009. If the mission calls for a jet, the new Gulfstream 250 promises the longest cabin in its class at nearly 26 feet. The $24 million jet will cruise at Mach .8 and have a 3,400 nautical mile range. With room for eight and a full lavatory in back, the plane falls somewhere in the super-midsize or large jet category. Flight tests won’t start until late 2009, with deliveries in 2011. The plane is expected to replace the Gulfstream G200.

Expect to see Sierra Super II Citation jets screaming into the flight levels soon now that the company has gotten FAA approval for its modifications. Sierra Industries has begun fitting Williams FJ44-3A engines on older Cessna Citation S550s, replacing 20-year-old Pratt & Whitney engines with new ones that are quieter and faster, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. The Super II can climb to 43,000 feet in under 25 minutes, compared to over an hour for the original Citation II. Fuel burn is much lower, too, with the Super II using about 27 percent less fuel than the original. The conversion isn’t cheap, coming in at about $1.9 million just to replace the engines and add FADEC controls; Sierra will also replace the plane’s avionics with all-glass displays for another $490,000. Sierra sees its competition as Cessna’s CJ3, which uses the same Williams engines and costs $8 million new. Sierra said it has six Super II conversions in the works right now and an unspecified number of them already booked to keep it busy through 2009.

Long-awaited details on Cessna’s standup- cabin, intercontinental business jet came out last week. The Cessna Columbus 850, which will start deliveries in 2014, will feature seating for up to 10 passengers, a wireless network and a four-panel Pro Line Fusion touch-screen glass clockpit from Rockwell Collins, the company said in a news release. Up front, the cockpit will also feature synthetic vision on the pilot and co-pilot panels, autothrottles and an optional heads-up display. The plane will cruise at Mach .80 to get its 4,000 nautical mile range, with a top cruising speed on shorter flights of Mach .85. The range will let go from Chicago to Paris or from London to Dubai without stopping, among many other city pairs. The 77-foot plane’s cabin is itself more than 35 feet long and will allow people up to 6-foot-1-inch to stand up. The plane is priced at $27 million in current dollars, with first flight expected in 2011 and deliveries three years after that. Spirit AeroSystems, another aviation company based in Wichita, Kan., like Cessna, will design and build the plane’s fuselage and tail section, the Wichita Eagle reported. The partnership is unusual for Cessna, which typically builds all the parts for its planes. Cessna is currently at capacity at its Wichita facility and is talking with local governments about expansion incentives. Spirit is also one of the airframe suppliers for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Cessna hopes to book 70 orders for its stand-up cabin intercontinental jet by the end of this year. The company announced the jet concept about 18 months ago but said last week that it would bring the jet to market, the Wichita Eagle reported. The company will release more details about the plane early next month. For now, even the price is up in the air, though Cessna said it will try to get customers to convert their refundable $100,000 deposits to $1 million nonrefundable ones. Cessna sees the jet as a way to hold on to customers that need a larger plane with greater ranger who would otherwise look to Cessna’s competitors like Gulfstream and Bombardier. Full-size mockups of the plane’s potential cabin last year featured nine passenger seats, a full galley and lavatory.