Textron Aviation came to Europe with new CEO Ron Draper, who’s looking to ramp up the manufacturer of Cessna and Beechcraft airplanes’ service capabilities in the region and place greater emphasis on its legacy Citation jet line. Draper, who assumed the chief executive role from Scott Ernest in October 2018, is a 20-year veteran of Textron Inc., including 15 years at Cessna and Textron Aviation. The former Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot and West Point graduate was most recently senior v-p of integrated supply chain.

His first order of business in Europe is an expansion of the parts warehouse in Dusseldorf, Germany. “We have a pretty covered [service] footprint on the European continent, but we’re expanding our parts in Europe,” Draper told AIN. “We’ve heard our customers say they want even more availability and faster response times, so we’re doubling the size of our warehouse in Europe to put more parts on the continent, to maintain our class-leading service we feel we enjoy with our customers today.”

The Wichita-based OEM has an installed base of more than 1,800 jets and turboprops in Europe, and a network comprising six service centers and five line stations. Worldwide, that installed base of jets and turboprops swells to more than 14,000, Draper said. And as that installed base grows with new models such as the Latitude, Longitude, Denali, and SkyCourier, service and support becomes even more critical, he explained. That’s why he moved former senior v-p of engineering Brad Thress to senior v-p of parts and programs. It’s a way to organizationally address improving parts support and programs to customers, Draper said.

Also, existing Citation customers have been asking for faster refresh cycles and more upgrades of their legacy jets, which is something that “we maybe slowed down on” in the past decade. “We’re going to keep the new products going—that’s our future and those products are great—but I think we’re going to put a little more emphasis on the customers that own a CJ whatever, pick your model, who need a software upgrade or additional things from us out of our engineering department,” Draper noted. “So we’re going to assign some more engineers to address sustaining engineering and make sure those customers are taken care of.”

New Model Pipeline

As for those new models Draper mentioned, the company’s newest Citation jet, the super-midsize Longitude, is set for entry into service (EIS) in the third quarter of 2019 after a longer-than-anticipated certification process. “We may have gotten a little aggressive, to put it in perspective, with some of the dates we put out,” Draper said, to achieve FAA certification of its biggest Citation that was originally expected in 2017. “We did underestimate the amount of paperwork with the FAA’s new design assurance process. That process is very rigorous, and we may have underestimated the amount of time to get that done. But we’re nearing the end of that.” Despite the certification delays, sales of the Longitude are “going well and [we] expect it to have a successful track record like the Latitude has had,” he said. The company has delivered more than 169 Citation Latitudes since the midsize jet’s EIS in the third quarter of 2015.

The two other airplanes in the Cessna new product pipeline, the single-engine turboprop Denali and twin-turboprop SkyCourier, are still targeted to make their first flights this year. Senior v-p of sales and marketing Rob Scholl told AIN he’s expecting the Denali to be the “new market leader in that class of aircraft.”

Plans for the large-cabin Hemisphere, on the other hand, remain idle at least until Safran completes its testing on fixes to the Snecma Silvercrest engine, which is supposed to wrap up this summer. “They’re redesigning parts of the engine and we’re really not going to talk about that until we understand that,” Draper said. “Once we understand that, then we will make some future decisions on that product.”

With three new airplanes in the works, a renewed emphasis on sustaining engineering, and the completion of Textron Aviation’s best year in a decade, Draper said he’s adjusting to his new role. “I’m learning a lot quickly,” he noted. “It was helpful…understanding operations, manufacturing, supply chain, that I’m not having to learn that. But Rob [Scholl] is shoving as much down me as possible on the sales and marketing side, and the customer service side. That’s where I’m accelerating my learning. It’s also a good time in the company to come in when we’ve had a really good year. And 2019’s off to a great start.”