VERO BEACH, Fla., Jan. 3, 2011 – This past year, Piper Aircraft Inc. significantly strengthened its position as a global airplane manufacturer.
"During 2010, the first full year since Imprimis acquired Piper, the company made memorable and notable progress in a number of important areas," said Piper CEO Geoffrey Berger. "We delivered considerably more aircraft, introduced and stepped up development of an all-new single-engine business jet, and readied the company for an unprecedented global push in 2011."
Deliveries, Employment Up
While fourth quarter and full-year Piper deliveries will not be publicly announced until an industry-wide event in February 2011, production activity at the company's Vero Beach, Fla., manufacturing campus during 2010 was up by more than 75 percent compared to 2009, despite a significant overall decline in industry deliveries by other manufacturers. This substantial market share increase reflected Piper's aggressive globalization efforts.
The company announced the all-new PiperJet Altaire in October and added more than 140 engineers to the business jet's development team with planned certification and deliveries set for 2014. Moreover, total Piper employment grew by several hundred employees to support the increased production.
Globalization, Fleet Sales Up
Piper opened two new global sales offices: one to serve the Americas region and one in Amsterdam to support the European, Middle East and Africa region. The company's third regional sales office in Brunei was reinforced with the addition of the company's director of global fleet sales to enlarge the company's presence in this expanding segment, particularly in the Asia/Pacific region.
Already, Piper extended its global reach in 2010 with fleet sales of more than 45 aircraft to pilot training institutions throughout Asia/Pacific and the United States. While Piper is not disclosing fleet purchase prices, retail value of the single-engine and twin-engine aircraft sold to flight training institutions worldwide in 2010 totals about $21 million, up considerably from the previous year.
In addition, the overall globalization initiative has already begun to pay off with foreign sales accounting for more than half of the company's new aircraft sales by dollar and unit volume for the first time in recent Piper history. Piper streamlined its senior leadership team and added strong talent in a number of important functional areas, including sales, marketing, customer support, engineering and operations.
The piece, including a listing of achievements by yearly quarter, is continued on the site.
-- Jonny O
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