Textron to adjust Citation production rates in 2017

Cessna Citation Latitude

Textron Aviation says it will adjust production rates of some of its Cessna business jets, as it faces pricing pressure from prospective customers.

The company says that although there are potential clients for the aircraft, the price point that they are willing to pay is too low.

Textron Inc’s chairman, president and CEO Scott Donnelly made the remarks during the company’s year end earnings call.

“While we will still have continued growth on the Latitude side based on its demand, we are pulling back on the production volumes and unit volumes for 2017 for a lot of these other aircraft because again we are not willing to go to the price levels where people seem to want to go.” said Donnelly.

Although Donnelly wouldn’t expand upon the aircraft types that would see their production rates cut, he didn’t rule out bring these back to normal production levels if the market picks up.

“If the market changes and we see demand coming back, then obviously, we can react to that. And we’re certainly hopeful that will be the case, but it needs to be at a price level that makes sense for us to sell the aircraft.” added Donnelly.

During the year Cessna delivered 178 Citation business jets, up 7.2% on the 166 aircraft delivered in 2016.

The uptick in shipments across the year was largely due to increased Citation Latitude deliveries, with Donnelly saying that these will increase by a further 30% in 2017.