Piper Aircraft’s former president and CEO is resigning from the company and two other executives are being promoted to fill the roles. James Bass, who has been president and CEO since 2003, gave few reasons for stepping aside other than saying that he had met his goals of turning the company around, the Vero Beach Press-Journal reported. His departure comes just five weeks after an American investment firm sold its 100-percent stake in Piper to a Southeast Asian investment firm. Under Bass’ tenure, Piper secured lucrative economic incentives from local government officials and the company launched the piston-powered Matrix. But it also had to lay off some employees and slow production as the economy sunk. Bass’ replacements are Kevin Gould, the company’s vice president of operations, and John Becker, the vice president of engineering. Gould will become CEO and Becker will be president. Becker has worked for Piper for 20 years, where he has most recently been overseeing development of the PiperJet. He also worked on bringing the Meridian, Seneca V and several other models to market. Gould joined Piper in 2005 after a two-year stint as a vice president at the now-defunct Adam Aircraft. Before that, he worked in Boeing’s commercial aircraft division for 12 years.

The sale of Piper Aircraft two weeks ago from one investment firm to another netted the first a profit of $31 million on the sale, though the total purchase price has not been released. American Capital sold its 100-percent stake in Piper to Imprimis, a firm based in Southeast Asia. American Capital first bought a partial ownership stake in Piper for $20 million in 1998, then bought its way to complete ownership five years later for an additional $34 million, according to a news release from American Capital. Though both investment companies heralded the sale as a sign of Piper’s strength and its ability to grow in the future, the company’s current condition became more clear with recently released sales figures. Piper sold just 22 planes in the first three months of this year, half the number sold in the same period in 2008, the Vero Beach Press Journal reported. Of those sales, a dozen were for the $820,000 Matrix and six were for the $2 million Meridian turboprop. Piper went through several rounds of layoffs earlier this year as it slowed down its production lines.

Sale of Piper could bolster its presence in Asia

The Maryland investment company that has owned Piper Aircraft since 2003 has sold its 100-percent stake in Piper to an Asian investment firm, Imprimis. The new owner has said it plans to keep Piper’s production facilities in Vero Beach, Fla., and expand the manufacturer’s presence in Asia, Piper said in a news release. Dealers are reacting positively to the change of ownership, since American Capital, the previous owner, was most interested in strengthening Piper’s finances, while the new owner wants to see Piper sell more planes in Asia, a rapidly expanding market for general aviation. The value of the sale is not known because both the new and old owners are privately held. Imprimis has offices in Bangkok, Singapore and Brunei. It has said it will continue to fund development of the PiperJet.

Piper CEO Jim Bass made clear last week that he’s not happy about the bad press business jets have been getting in recent months. In a speech at Sun ‘n Fun last Tuesday, Bass said general aviation manufacturers and users need to start standing up for themselves and asserting why GA is important. He pointed both to the jobs in manufacturing the industry creates, as well as the role planes can play in making companies operate more efficiently. Bass also had an update on the $2.2 million PiperJet, slated to begin deliveries early next year. The company has taken the plane up to 35,000 feet after installing landing gear doors and the pressurization system. The next phase of tests includes exploring the limits of the entire flight envelope, including installing a parachute to help the plane get out of spins it may enter during slow flight and stall testing.

General aviation manufacturers are continuing to struggle, even after many have made substantial cuts in the last four months. Piper Aircraft is shutting its production lines down for one week each month from April through July, requiring all employees to take those weeks off without pay, the company said in a news release. Piper had previously announced two weeks worth of shutdowns and added two more last week. The company has laid off several hundred workers and now has 650 employees. While it has not ruled out further layoffs, it is doing “everything possible” to avoid additional cuts. Cirrus Design, meanwhile, has cut 52 people from its Duluth, Minn., offices. The layoffs affect its engineering, support and administrative departments, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reported. Despite the cutbacks, Cirrus said recently it is still developing its single-engine jet and the company says it is more healthy financially than it was late last year.

Piper Aircraft announced a second round of layoffs Tuesday, slashing 300 more workers from its payroll on top of the 150 positions it cut last month. The company, like many other general aviation manufacturers, says orders are coming in far slower than expected, making it unrealistic to keep production lines running at normal speeds when there are no buyers waiting for planes, the Palm Beach Post reported. The two rounds of layoffs amount to a 40-percent reduction in the number of employees at Piper since last summer. The company is bracing for a drop in sales of more than 40 percent this year compared to its original predictions. In addition to the second round of layoffs, Piper will shut its plant down for a week in April and a week in July, and the production line workers who remain have been limited to four-day work weeks. Because of the cuts, Piper is not expecting to receive nearly $11 million from local governments that it would have been eligible for under an agreement signed last year that kept the company in Vero Beach, Fla. Piper would have to have 1,166 workers on its payroll to get its money, but after this round of layoffs it will have just 650.

Piper Aircraft confirmed last week it is cutting 150 jobs in Florida as orders for new planes have slowed to a trickle. The cuts complicate an economic incentive deal Piper struck with local governments last year to keep the company in Vero Beach, the South Florida Sun-Sentinal reported. Under the terms of the deal, Piper would get up to $32 million over several years as long as it expanded its production facilities and hired more workers. While Piper has gotten the first $10 million and would have been eligible for more money at the start of the year, it said in announcing the layoffs that it would not try to secure any more of the incentive funds in the near term. Piper CEO Jim Bass said the worst may not be over and that more layoffs could come this year if the economy continues to slide. In a worst-case scenario, Piper could be forced to repay part of the incentive money it has already gotten if it fails to meet certain hiring targets. The company can seek two-year extensions on those deadlines, though, giving it some breathing room.

Joining nearly every other general aviation manufacturer in cutting back production, Piper Aircraft acknowledged that it will idle its Florida plant for four weeks starting Friday. The company often shuts down its plant for one to two weeks around the holidays, but said it was adjusting its schedule to deal with slow demand for new planes, the Palm Beach Post reported. Piper has given few details about how much of a hit its order books have taken in the economic recession. Last month it said some employees would work fewer hours, but the company did not provide specifics. And it’s unclear whether Piper will meet a Dec. 31 deadline to hire 154 more full-time employees, one of the conditions it must meet before it gets a $4 million economic development infusion from the county.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for most of the nation’s general aviation makers. Since Cirrus Design announced 100 layoffs about 10 days ago, several other makers have followed suit and have either laid workers off or plan to do so shortly. The economic turmoil is hitting Cirrus, Mooney, Hawker Beechcraft, Cessna and Piper, all of which have announced various changes to cope with slowing orders. We round up the latest from each manufacturer below.

Cirrus
Cirrus laid off a total of 105 people from its plants in Duluth, Minn., and Grand Forks, N.D at the end of October. The company had previously laid off 100 people in September and its workforce now stands at about 1,100 people, the Associated Press reported. In addition, Cirrus has cut its production lines back to a three-day work week as its orders have slowed. The company is now making just a dozen planes per week.

Mooney
Last week, Mooney Airplane Co. announced it is halting aircraft production indefinitely and furloughing 229 workers, two-thirds of its payroll, as it tries to sell off excess inventory. Mooney’s cuts are perhaps the most drastic among general aviation makers, though they are not the largest in terms of the number of jobs affected. The company’s remaining 91 employees all work in its parts, repairs and customer service departments, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The severe cuts come as the company has struggled with sagging sales all year. It laid off 80 workers in June and last month it ousted chief executive Dennis Ferguson. The company would not say how many completed planes it had waiting for buyers, only that many of its potential customers have stopped shopping for planes amid the slowing economy. Mooney’s $14 million payroll means that local economies around its Kerrville, Texas, plant will feel the sting of the more than 200 employees now out of work.

Hawker Beechcraft
Head north to Wichita, Kan., and two plane makers are letting workers go. Hawker Beechcraft on Monday announced that 5 percent of its workers, or 490 people, would be laid off. For 409 of those workers, Friday was their last day on the job, the Wichita Eagle reported. Prior to the layoffs, Hawker Beechcraft employed about 9,800 people worldwide. The company has said it hasn’t needed to cut as deeply because much of its business is with international clients. Though with global economies also slumping, the company isn’t necessarily out of the woods yet, and the company has acknowledged that tough times are still ahead for it.

Cessna
Wichita’s other big plane manufacturer, Cessna, announced last week that layoffs were inevitable at its various sites. Cessna has not yet said how many people would be laid off, but it did say that sales and deliveries are slipping as buyers are putting their orders on hold, the Wichita Eagle reported. And as a result, some workforce reductions would be necessary. At Cessna’s plant in Bend, Ore., where the Cessna 350 and 400 are made, workers were told on Thursday to expect layoffs in the near future, Bend’s NBC affiliate reported. But company officials said they had not determined how many positions there would be cut.

Piper
Just one month ago, Piper Aircraft boasted that is sales were strong and that the company was on solid ground. But now it is cutting back its work week and has stopped hiring as its order book, like most other manufacturers’, has dried up. The company would not say how much it would slow down the production lines at its Vero Beach, Fla., plant, West Palm Beach’s NBC affiliate reported. But the company said it had “no plans” to lay off any of its roughly 1,000 workers. Piper got $32 million earlier this year from local economic development groups to stay in Vero Beach. Part of that deal included a pledge from Piper to hire about 400 new workers for its PiperJet program in the next four years.

Bombardier
The Canadian company provided one piece of good news last week when it confirmed that it is moving ahead with construction of a new assembly line in Wichita for its Learjet 85 and will hire as many as 700 people, the Associated Press reported. Bombardier’s jet sales have remained strong so far in the economic downturn, even as business jet sales at Cessna and Hawker have slipped. Part of that may be because of Bombardier’s relatively healthy order books for new commercial aircraft. The company expects to fill the new assembly line positions for the Learjet 85 in the next two years.

The 1977 Cessna Cardinal restored by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association over the course of the last year went to a Texas flight instructor. Bruce Chase, based in Longview, Texas, got the keys in a ceremony Jan. 26. Chase has been researching how pilots make the transition between traditional cockpit instruments and glass panels, so AOPA used that as the setup, telling him he’d been awarded a grant to continue his study. When Chase showed up at the airport, he was greeted by the plane, as well as $5,000 for further research. AOPA’s next plane is a 1978 Piper Archer II. The plane is currently getting stripped and repainted and will eventually be outfitted with an Aspen Avionics panel, Garmin navigation equipment and an S-Tec autopilot.