The past year has been challenging but also marked a turnaround for Piper Aircraft. CEO Simon Caldecott has been on the job for a year, and the first decision he was faced with was huge: what to do about the single-engine PiperJet Altaire program. While just before last year's NBAA show Piper had given every indication that the Altaire would continue, Caldecott used the occasion to announce that the program was being put on indefinite hold, although Piper has retained all the intellectual property developed for the Altaire.
“I was originally hired as chief of production of that program,” he said. “Once I started digging into the business case for it, it didn’t make sense in the current market. Demand for single- or twin-engine VLJs is just not there.” When the PiperJet was announced in 2006, Eclipse Aviation founder Vern Raburn was still predicting a market for 1,200 VLJs a year, Caldecott said. “Last year 106 or 107 were delivered. The market is less than one tenth [of the prediction], we’re not going to get those volumes. It’s a heavy investment. The economy of a single-engine jet does work out better, but anyone developing one now has got to have deep pockets.”
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