Among the companies making their ABACE debut this year is Nextant Aviation, which is displaying its Nextant 400XT, the remanufactured version of the Beechjet 400 series light jet. The company is poised to play a major part in the Asian entry-level jet market, which currently totals only 342 aircraft worth an approximate $1.23 billion but has huge regional potential. In little more than a year, the company has delivered 26 aircraft to operators in six countries.
Nextant has found a niche taking low-time examples of the Beech twinjet, stripping them down to bare airframes and rebuilding them. By the end of the 6,000-hour process, the resulting aircraft is 85 percent new, with all time-limited components replaced and resulting in a modern, efficient business jet at a significantly lower cost compared with new comparable aircraft. The list price for a 400XT is just under $5 million, compared with more than $8 million for an Embraer Phenom 300 or Cessna CJ3, and more than $10 million for a Bombardier Learjet 40XR.
